QUESTION PERIOD — Finance
Trans Mountain Pipeline
May 15, 2019
Senator, I do beg to differ that we have had record deficit spending over the past number of years with the Liberal government and we are borrowing from the future. We can go on and on about that, but just over a year ago, when gas prices in Vancouver were only $1.69, the Prime Minister said that the higher cost of fuel prices as a result of the carbon tax is, “exactly what we want.”
It may be exactly what the Prime Minister wants, but he has never had to worry about making ends meet in the way that many Canadian families do each and every month. Being so out of touch with a growing number of Canadian taxpayers, who are forced to pay more and more at the pumps and cut costs on groceries and other basic needs, I wonder if this is exactly what the Prime Minister wants.
Yesterday we asked Minister Morneau about when there will be certainty about the building of the Trans Mountain pipeline. I would like to ask you, senator, when will the government provide certainty on the building of the Trans Mountain pipeline?
I thank the honourable senator for a wide range of assertions and questions. Let me refer page 20 of the budget statement to the honourable senator for her review, where she will see that in the Harper days the deficits contributed to a growth in the debt-to-GDP ratio and we had the unfortunate experience of both very high deficits and contributing to the debt-to-GDP ratio. That is not the case in the last three years and one we should be celebrating, not ridiculing or seeking to distort.
With respect to the TMX, I can only quote what the minister said yesterday, and that is it’s the government’s intention to move forward and make a decision in June when the advice has been received and it is, as the minister alluded, the desire of the government to take advantage of the summer cycle for works.
