Fall Economic Statement Implementation Bill, 2023
Third Reading--Vote Deferred
June 18, 2024
Honourable senators, I will briefly address one aspect of Bill C-59 — one of the government’s omnibus budget bills. I would like to place on the record concerns raised by many stakeholders in respect of an amendment added to Division 6 of Part 5 of Bill C-59, dealing with the Competition Act.
Bill C-59 implements certain provisions of the budget tabled on March 28, 2023, as well as the Fall Economic Statement 2023. However, this bill also continues the government’s bad habit of including numerous non-financial measures. For example, Part 5 entitled “Various Measures” contains over 130 pages, including two new statutes: An Act respecting the Canada Water Agency; and An Act to establish the Department of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities. It also amends over 10 existing statutes, including the Competition Act.
Bill C-59 makes proposals in relation to private actions before the Competition Tribunal, as contrasted with proceedings initiated by the Competition Bureau. It also amends the Competition Act to add a new reviewable practice regarding deceptive environmental claims about products. This new prohibition will target deceptive, misleading or false statements, warranties or guarantees made about the environmental benefit of a product. This bad practice is called greenwashing.
For example, think of Keurig, the manufacturer of coffee pods. In 2022, the company had to pay a settlement in both the United States and Canada in a class-action lawsuit that alleged Keurig deceptively advertised its K-Cup pods as recyclable. Keurig had to pay $10 million in a settlement and suffer advertising restrictions moving forward.
Pursuant to subclause 236(1) of Bill C-59, the Competition Bureau Canada — and potentially private actors — will be able to initiate proceedings in Canada before the Competition Tribunal in a case of product greenwashing.
In case of an action before the Competition Tribunal, the onus will rest on the manufacturer to prove that the representations made about a product were based on adequate and proper tests.
The government-proposed amendments on representation of environmental benefits of products have generated significant concerns among economic stakeholders, such as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Aluminium Association of Canada and Pathways Alliance, a consortium of the largest oil sands companies. They don’t argue that they were not consulted during the pre-budget process but rather that this is a major change in the regulatory framework governing the sale of their products.
In my view, they’re complaining about policy decisions made by the government after years of consultation, as pointed out earlier today by Senator Moncion in her speech. I accept such decisions, including reverse onus on the manufacturer of a product to show that they conducted proper testing. However, these measures should have been part of a separate bill dealing exclusively with the Competition Act. Instead, they are part of an omnibus bill, depriving Parliament of the time necessary to thoroughly review the proposed amendments.
More concerning is the addition by the House of Commons of another significant prohibited practice not contemplated by the government and somewhat on the fly at the Standing Committee on Finance in the other place. This was what happened with Bill C-59 when it was amended by opposition parties at clause by clause at committee to target claims or representations made about a business or brand as a whole in connection with benefits to the environment.
This amendment proposes to create a new form of reviewable conduct defined as follows:
. . . makes a representation to the public with respect to the benefits of a business or a business activity for protecting or restoring the environment or mitigating the environmental and ecological causes or effects of climate change that is not based on adequate and proper substantiation in accordance with internationally recognized methodology, the proof of which lies on the person making the representation . . . .
The origin of this amendment is a misunderstanding regarding comments made by the Commissioner of Competition before the Finance Committee in the other place. This was confirmed by the Competition Bureau in a letter to our Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Commerce and the Economy, which stated:
The reality is that a significant portion of the greenwashing complaints the Bureau receives do not involve claims about products, but rather more general or forward-looking environmental claims about a business or brand as a whole (e.g. claims about being “net zero” or “carbon neutral by 2030”).
As a result, the Competition Bureau made the following recommendation to policy-makers:
Study whether the approach to greenwashing taken in Clause 236(1) could be expanded to cover all environmental claims made to promote a product or business interest.
It goes on. This is the Commissioner’s office talking. It said, and I quote:
Although we recommended a more in-depth study, we respect the decision of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance to make amendments to clause 236 on this important issue. As we mentioned above, the committee made that decision after hearing from various stakeholders. In the end, the amendments were unanimously adopted by the House of Commons at third reading on May 28, 2024.
In other words, we have before us a bill that contains a significant amendment to the Competition Act not introduced by the government and adopted without any prior consultation with stakeholders while the commissioner was inviting MPs to carefully study that issue and perhaps come up with an answer.
Unsurprisingly, our National Finance Committee, as well as the Banking Committee, received briefs about this unexpected amendment and heard from many organizations raising concerns about the new reviewable conduct and the vagueness of a concept such as “internationally recognized methodology.” This is coupled with the onus of proof placed on the business and the risk of private actions.
During the clause-by-clause stage at the National Finance Committee, Senator Ross proposed to delete the words “. . . in accordance with internationally recognized methodology . . .” After a respectful debate, the committee declined this amendment and instead included strong observations in its seventeenth report, dated June 13, 2024, which I want to highlight and bring to the attention of the Competition Bureau through this debate:
The Committee notes that a meaningful proportion of industry players active in Canada have made real efforts to support the move to a net-zero economy and to differentiate their products and firms on this basis. These legitimate efforts should not be deterred or impeded, for fears of the unintended consequences of the pursuit of greenwashing actions.
Your committee believes that meaningful consultation by the Competition Bureau, to set out clear guidelines in this area, is important, and for any private right of action to be informed by such guidelines as to what may be considered deceptive in the area of environmental pursuits.
Furthermore, while clause 236 (1) of Bill C-59 notes the importance of internationally recognized methodology to substantiate such claims, the Committee believes that the analysis should also include federal and other Canadian best practices, such as those set out by Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Today, colleagues, we are asked to adopt Bill C-59 as a whole, even though it contains significant changes to the Competition Act for which there was no prior consultation by the government in its pre-budget process, nor by the Competition Bureau. However, I invite Minister Champagne — who is in charge of the Competition Act — and the government to consider ways to follow up on our observations, including potential legislative amendments after meaningful consultations with stakeholders.
Finally, I urge the Competition Bureau to live up to its May 31, 2024, letter, wherein it committed to adopt a principled approach to the enforcement of these new provisions. This approach should be informed by the observations made by our Standing Senate Committee on National Finance and developed further after a meaningful consultation process with all stakeholders.
Dear colleagues, thank you very much for listening to these concerns. Meegwetch.
Honourable senators, I rise today as well to speak to Bill C-59, An Act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 21, 2023 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023, also known by its short title as the “Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023.”
At her second reading speech, Senator Marshall gave an excellent overview of the many problems with this legislation. As you will recall, she had insufficient time to cover all its problems. I’m certain that if she had unlimited time, she would put it to very good use.
However, I must admit that I am constantly perplexed that senators applaud the speech and then — even after the veneer has been stripped from the government’s legislation, showing the utter sham of their talking points — support the legislation anyway.
I am fully anticipating that Senator Dalphond will vote against Bill C-59 when we vote on this, but we’ll see what happens.
We see this repeated here on almost a weekly basis: Senators walk into this chamber and into committee meetings with their minds seemingly made up. No matter how compelling the arguments or convincing the evidence, the outcome is always the same: The evidence is ignored, arguments are brushed off and the government gets a pass. We have government officials saying a bill is out of scope, yet we pass it anyway.
There are numerous examples of this, but allow me to illustrate it by referencing the journey of one piece of legislation: Bill C-234, An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act. As you may recall, this bill created additional on‑farm exemptions from the carbon tax. The legislation was supported by every sector of the agricultural industry.
Senators were warned that making any amendments to this bill would result in the government filibustering its progress in the other place and effectively kill the bill.
Despite this warning, the majority of senators decided they knew better and voted in favour of amendments by Senator Dalphond and Senator Woo.
Today, the bill languishes in the House of Commons, just as we said it would. Farmers are still suffering. It has risen to the top of the Order Paper three times in the other place. Each time, the Liberals run out the clock so that it cannot come to a vote. Senators did not improve the legislation by amending it; they killed it. Farmers are paying the price.
I find this pattern of ignoring facts and arguments to be troubling and somewhat mystifying, but I have accepted it as the current reality and do not want you to mistake my remarks as an attempt to change your minds on this bill. I am well aware that such an attempt would be an exercise in futility, as the vote at second reading demonstrated. Instead, I speak to give voice to the concerns of the growing majority of Canadians who do not feel represented by either this Liberal government or its appointed senators.
Many of them have almost lost hope in our country and institutions. They watch helplessly as their dream for a better tomorrow slowly drains away while the government mishandles the economy, exacerbates inflation, increases the national debt, piles on more taxes, drives up the price of energy, pushes home affordability out of reach, erodes business confidence, ignores plummeting productivity numbers and flirts with policy decisions with potential repercussions from key trading partners.
These are the people who email me and call my office on a daily basis. They have watched, bewildered, as this government systematically destroys the country they love and then berates anyone who dares to express a different view.
We are constantly berated here for our views by our government leader at Question Period.
These are the people who feel invisible and silenced: those who have been written off as conspiracy theorists simply because they cannot believe that anyone with the country’s best interests in mind would do the things this government is doing; those who struggle to maintain hope and to feel they are being heard.
These are the people I am speaking for today, colleagues, and these are the people who wish for you to hear what I am about to say.
Colleagues, the bill before us today was tabled in Parliament on November 30 of last year. It implements some of the measures contained in the 2023 Fall Economic Statement and some of the measures contained in the March 2023 Budget.
This means that the 526-page document we are considering today enacts policies which were first announced between 7 and 15 months ago and envisioned long before then. Most of them are policies which were bad then and are even worse now.
Normally, if you know you are going in the wrong direction, you change course — but not this government. For the last nine years, the Liberals have been introducing policies which have consistently driven the country into a dangerous economic position, and they show no signs of letting up.
We see overwhelming evidence of this everywhere. Let me give you just a few examples.
The first is a record number of food bank visits. Last year, food banks had to handle a record 2 million visits in a single month, with 1 million more people expected in 2024. The other week, Nanos released survey results which show almost one in five Canadians say that they or someone they know used a food bank within the last 12 months.
The second is escalating housing costs. Housing costs have doubled — yes, Senator Gold, doubled — over the past eight years, making it significantly harder for Canadians to afford homes. This includes both purchase prices and rental costs, Senator Gold.
The third is rising mortgage payments. Mortgage payments have increased by 150% since the current administration took office. This surge in costs is contributing to the financial strain on Canadian households. The Bank of Canada has warned that these are expected to go higher yet, with the median monthly payment increasing by more than 60% for those with a variable‑rate mortgage.
The fourth is the housing affordability gap. The cost of housing has risen 40% faster than incomes, creating the worst affordability gap in the G7 and the second worst of all 40 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, nations.
The fifth is with respect to saving for down payments. It now takes 25 years to save up for a down payment on an average home for a typical family in Toronto, a significant increase from previous years.
The sixth is persistently high inflation. Despite warnings from financial experts, government spending continues to fuel inflation, eroding the purchasing power of Canadians. High inflation rates mean the government is getting richer while Canadians get poorer.
The seventh is with respect to interest rates and mortgage risks. The Bank of Canada has highlighted the risk of a mortgage default crisis, with $900 billion in mortgages due to renew over the next three years at much higher rates. This creates a severe financial risk for many homeowners. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, or OSFI, is reporting that many Canadians will face a payment shock when they renew their mortgages at much higher rates over the next two years, which could affect as many as 76% of Canadians with outstanding mortgages. As a direct consequence of this, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, or OSFI, is expecting that these payment increases will lead to more Canadians defaulting on their mortgages.
Next is proximity to bankruptcy. Over 50% of Canadians are now $200 or less away from financial insolvency, indicating a widespread, precarious financial situation among the population. OSFI has noted:
. . . mortgage payments are taking up a larger part of some households’ income, leading to increases in the number of borrowers not being able to make payments on other loans and debts.
In fact, Desjardins has reported that Canadian households are the most indebted in the G7 by a wide margin.
There is overwhelming debt. Household credit market debt has reached a staggering $2.9 trillion, meaning that household debt was 179% of disposable income of Canadians at the end of last year.
Business insolvencies have increased by 87% just this past year, reflecting the challenging economic environment and its impact on the business sector. There has been a 39% increase in violent crime, contributing to a growing sense of insecurity among Canadians.
We see a rising poverty rate. Just today, Food Banks Canada released a report that suggests that the poverty rate is rising and that 25% of Canadians likely have a poverty-level standard of living. Imagine, colleagues, that in our country, 25% of Canadians likely have a poverty-level standard of living.
Homeless encampments have become a common sight in almost every major city, indicating a significant rise in homelessness and housing instability.
Canada has seen a decline in its global competitiveness, falling from fourth place in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index in 2007 to twenty-third place in 2020. This decline is coupled with a decrease in Canada’s share of global GDP and a slow rate of domestic innovation.
Currently, Canada is ranked eighteenth in productivity with its GDP per hour worked at only 42.5% of the top-ranked country, which is Ireland. We are one of the few advanced countries that have not recovered its pre-pandemic level of per capita GDP, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, projects that Canada will rank dead last among the OECD members in real GDP per capita growth until 2060.
Colleagues, common sense Conservatives have consistently warned Justin Trudeau that his out-of-control spending is forcing the Bank of Canada to keep interest rates higher for longer, yet, despite this, the bill before us introduces new measures that will further reduce the budgetary balance by almost $21 billion according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
The Governor of the Bank of Canada confirmed that Trudeau’s spending was “not helpful” in his efforts to bring down interest rates, and Bank of Canada Senior Deputy Governor, Carolyn Rogers, has warned that Canada’s economic productivity levels are so bad that she referred to it as an emergency.
Yet, despite all of this, Justin Trudeau decided to pile on an additional $23.9 billion of new spending in the Fall Economic Statement and $61 billion of new spending in the April 2024 budget. Together, these will reduce our budgetary balance by $60 billion over 2023-24 to 2028-29.
Six months ago — when the Fall Economic Statement was produced — the Parliamentary Budget Officer warned us of the following:
Since Budget 2021, the Government has projected a total of $212.8 billion in new fiscal room. Essentially all of this fiscal room has now been exhausted through increased spending (on a net basis), with only $0.5 billion used to reduce the deficit (on a cumulative basis).
Just one month ago, the Parliamentary Budget Officer released his report, Budget 2024: Issues for parliamentarians, in which he sounded the alarm once again:
Budget 2024 marks the third consecutive fiscal plan in which the Government’s new measures—even after accounting for revenue-raising and spending reviews—have exceeded the incremental “fiscal room” resulting from economic and fiscal developments. Indeed, the $39.3 billion in (net) new measures announced in Budget 2024 more than exhaust the $29.1 billion in new fiscal room over 2023-24 to 2028-29.
In other words, while our economy struggles to get back on its feet, the government is determined to knock it back down over and over again.
Taken in isolation, Bill C-59 may not seem like a big deal, but if you take a step back and look at where we have come from and then look ahead to see where we are going, you will see that Bill C-59 continues to nudge us in a direction in which we do not want to go.
This bill is fraught with missteps and misjudgments that will burden Canadians, hinder our progress and exacerbate existing challenges. Allow me to briefly point out four of them.
First is economic impact and inflation. As I said earlier, this bill proposes more than $20 billion in new spending. We can argue about how much of an inflationary impact that $20 billion will have, but there is no argument over the fact that it will have an impact.
For those who may not know, the government does not have a bottomless pot of money somewhere that it magically dips into every time it announces new spending, although it certainly appears as if Justin Trudeau does not know that. When the government needs more money, it either has to pull it out of the economy through increased taxes or extract it from the capital markets through increased borrowing.
The net result of this is downward pressure on economic growth, upward pressure on inflation and interest rates or both. As my colleagues and I have repeatedly emphasized, this mini budget can be summed up very simply: prices up, rates up, debt up, taxes up, time’s up for a reckless fiscal policy, yet this warning is just brushed off.
The Liberal government and liberal-minded senators may find it easy to dismiss such criticisms when they come from members of the Conservative Party, but I would remind you that those warnings have been echoed by the Bank of Canada and the financial sector where they have unequivocally stated that government spending is contributing to our nation’s high rate of inflation.
Yet, despite these calls for moderation, the government is driving ahead with its inflationary agenda, and the majority of senators in this chamber will support them in their determination to do so.
The result is that we now have a financial environment where Justin Trudeau will spend more money next year servicing his debt than he will spend on health care transfers. This projection is not just a testament to his fiscal irresponsibility, but a harbinger of the sacrifices that Canadians will be forced to make when those costs climb even higher due to the government’s failure to lock in its COVID debt at low rates.
You might, however, be quick to point out the latest consumer index numbers that showed inflation coming down — as Senator Gold pointed out to us today — and the corresponding move by the Bank of Canada to decrease the interest rate by 25 basis points. That is welcome news, but we need to understand —
Senator Plett, I’m afraid I have to interrupt.
Honourable senators, it is now seven o’clock. Pursuant to rule 3-3(1), I am obliged to leave the chair until eight o’clock, when we will resume, unless it is your wish, honourable senators, to not see the clock.
Is it agreed to not see the clock?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Thank you, colleagues. I will continue.
That is welcome news, but we need to understand it in its context, colleagues.
First of all, a government that has habitually pushed inflation higher through its reckless fiscal policies is in no position to take credit when inflation moves in the opposite direction. This government has done nothing to help lower inflation, and has only made it worse. Any decrease in inflation has come at a huge cost to Canadians through the sacrifices they have made and the hardships they have endured, as the Bank of Canada used monetary policy to fight against foolish fiscal policy.
Second, we must remember that as inflation comes down, prices do not. This government boasts about declining inflation like they are somehow responsible for it and life is about to return to normal — a time we enjoyed just before Justin Trudeau became the Prime Minister. That is false, colleagues. The damage has been done, and I suspect there is more to come as long as this incompetent Prime Minister and his government are in power.
Third, we would do well to note that the Bank of Canada has warned that risks to the inflation outlook remain. The Bank of Canada stated:
. . . we will continue to closely watch the evolution of core inflation. We remain focused on the balance between demand and supply in the economy, inflation expectations, wage growth and corporate pricing behaviour.
Scotiabank has expressed its concerns as well:
. . . we remain concerned about upside risks to inflation given rising wages and falling productivity, the surprising strength in consumption, the serial over-stimulation by the federal and provincial governments, and the potential for a housing market rebound. . . .
Simply put, our progress is tenuous, and the government’s failure to align fiscal policy with monetary policy remains concerning. While the Bank of Canada is trying to constrain spending, the Minister of Finance has no such preoccupation.
The second way that Bill C-59 moves us in the wrong direction is via tax increases. Bill C-59 introduces measures that will place an undue burden on middle-class Canadians, exacerbating the cost of living crisis. The digital services tax, known as DST, is a prime example. While it’s intended to target large corporations, the reality is that this tax will be passed on to consumers, increasing the cost of digital services and other goods at a time when Canadians are already struggling to make ends meet.
The Retail Council of Canada voiced its concerns about the new tax, highlighting the broader than intended consequences on the retail ecosystem. They rightly point out that the DST would impose significant administrative burdens, raise double taxation concerns and ultimately harm Canadian consumers by driving up prices. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce said:
The timing couldn’t be worse: affordability is top of mind for nearly all Canadians right now, and cost-related concerns are six of the top 10 business obstacles expected . . . .
They warned that the tax will negatively affect the daily life of Canadians and the economy in at least five ways: Daily digital services will cost more; consumer loyalty programs will do less; business growth and innovation will decrease; start-ups and small businesses will be the most affected; and Canadian trade relationships will take a hit.
The retroactive nature of the DST compounds the problem further, undermining business confidence and potentially igniting trade tensions with our largest trading partner, the United States.
That is not an exaggeration. Last year, U.S. Ambassador David Cohen said:
. . . if Canada decides to proceed alone, you leave the United States with no choice but to take retaliatory measures in the trade context, potentially in the digital trade context, in order to respond to that.
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means and the U.S. Senate Finance Committee have both raised concerns, urging their Trade Representative to take retaliatory action if Canada proceeds unilaterally with this tax. The Ways and Means Committee wrote the following:
We write as Members of the Ways and Means Committee to express our disapproval of Canada’s decision to move forward with a digital services tax (DST) that, if imposed, would seriously harm American companies and workers. Despite nearly all 140 economies participating in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) work to reach agreement on updated international tax rules approving a one-year extension of the moratorium on DSTs through December 31, 2024, we are disappointed that Canada is unfortunately moving against this global consensus with a punitive DST scheduled to take effect next year. We urge you to impress upon your counterparts in Canada that its unilateral approach is discriminatory and, if enacted, could face significant consequences.
Yet, in spite of all this, the Liberal government is just plunging ahead, with fingers in their ears, heads in the sand, and living in some kind of a la-la land because it is desperate to scratch out a few more tax dollars to support its spending addiction.
Third, in addition to inflationary spending and tax increases, Bill C-59 also impacts energy affordability. The proposed excessive interest and financing expenses limitation, or EIFEL, rules are designed to prevent unreasonable deductions of interest and other financing costs. However, those rules are so broadly drafted that they will apply to Canadian energy utilities, which means higher energy costs for consumers.
As was explained at our National Finance Committee by Mr. Francis Bradley, President and CEO of Electricity Canada, utilities are required to pass tax costs on to consumers. This means that the proposed EIFEL rules will lead to increased utility bills, exacerbating the financial strain on households already grappling with rising costs. In some provinces, consumers will pay EIFEL-related costs on their gas bills but not on their electric bills and vice versa, creating a patchwork of affordability winners and losers.
While many of our peers in the Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development, or OECD, including the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom, have extended exemptions to utilities from their application of those rules, the Liberal government is refusing. When Conservatives proposed an amendment to facilitate this at committee in the House of Commons, it was defeated.
The fourth area where this legislation falls short is with respect to the housing policy. Bill C-59 proposes measures to address the severe housing shortage. Those measures are grossly inadequate. They would create a new department of housing, infrastructure and communities, which would merely add another layer of bureaucracy. That is something they’re good at. We currently have a shortage of 1.8 million homes, and the measures in Bill C-59 will do nothing to fix this crisis. The signature policy in this mini-budget is to pour $15 billion into a fund that’s building barely 1,500 homes a year when we need 5.8 million new homes built by 2030 to meet the demand.
It is a classic case of too little, too late.
A few weeks ago, builders told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities that there is no way the government is going to meet its target for housing starts. MP Tracy Gray asked the following question:
Claims were made in Liberal budget 2024 that they will build 3.87 million homes by 2031 . . . .
. . . how realistic is this?
Richard Lyall, President of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario, responded by saying, “Not a chance.” That’s because housing starts are currently decreasing, not increasing, due to high financing costs and development charges. Mr. Lyall went on to say:
. . . we’re slowing down. We have hundreds of framing crews sitting at home now. It’s working its way through the process.
He also said:
The changes to the purpose-built rental taxation situation is very helpful in keeping some projects going, but we’re headed down in a big way.
And:
We’re in a crisis moment.
Colleagues, Canadians have had to fight like a swimmer caught in a riptide to survive the pull of this government’s reckless policies as they drag everything out to sea, where it drowns. While taxpayers are fighting to survive, the government keeps moving the goalposts by which its measures its own performance.
In 2015, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government committed to its first fiscal rule: balancing the budget by fiscal year 2019-20. That should have been an easy thing because, according to the Prime Minister, we all know the budget balances itself. Yet, that commitment did not even survive one single year. It was replaced with a second commitment to reduce federal debt relative to the size of the economy. This commitment was abandoned even before COVID hit, with the debt-to-GDP ratio increasing in 2019-20 and then rising sharply during the pandemic.
Then, in her initial Fall Economic Statement as Minister of Finance in 2020, Minister Freeland introduced another new fiscal guardrail, designed to link government spending to labour market outcomes. This guardrail was intended to signal when to reduce post-COVID stimulus spending. However, as the job market recovered more rapidly than anticipated, the anchor was quickly abandoned.
In Budget 2022, the government reinstated the declining debt‑to-GDP ratio as its fiscal anchor, yet, once again, they blew through that in 2022-23 and then in 2023-24. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the government is projected to do the same again in fiscal year 2024-25.
The Business Council of Canada has noted that:
The Trudeau-Freeland record on fiscal guardrails or anchors speaks for itself. Since 2020, the federal government has never met a fiscal target it imposed on itself.
That was the Business Council of Canada, Senator Gold, not the Conservative Party of Canada. Furthermore, they believe it is very improbable that this government will ever meet those targets.
Colleagues, the bill before us today is just one more illustration of this government’s reckless incompetence. Bill C-59 is deeply flawed in its approach to addressing our nation’s economic, social and regulatory challenges. It proposes increased spending, which will exacerbate inflation and interest rates; tax increases that will burden middle-class Canadians; energy policies that will raise costs for consumers; and inadequate housing measures. In a word, this is a failure. There’s only one appropriate response to this, and that is to defeat this bill.
Colleagues, we have members of this Senate who are in the financial sector. We have members of this Senate who are bankers. I would like to know how they would treat an individual customer who would come in and ask them for a loan at their bank, whether they would approve that. We will see how they will vote on this because that would be an indication of how they would operate a bank.
I urge all senators to send the government a message that this is not good enough. Colleagues, we can defeat this legislation. It will not bring the government down. If we do the responsible, proper thing, we will defeat this legislation. And if you do, colleagues, Canadians coast to coast to coast will thank us for it. Thank you very much.
All those in favour of the motion will please say “yea.”
Some Hon. Senators: Yea.
The Hon. the Speaker: All those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”
Some Hon. Senators: Nay.
The Hon. the Speaker: In my opinion the “yeas” have it.
I see two senators rising. Any agreement on a bell?
The vote will be deferred. Pursuant to rule 9-10(1) and the order adopted on September 21, 2022, the vote is deferred to 4:15 p.m. tomorrow, with the bells to ring at 4 p.m.
