QUESTION PERIOD — Finance
Government's Fiscal Policy
April 27, 2023
I want to follow up on the questioning from the opposition leader with regard to Prime Minister Trudeau’s incompetence.
You have to admit, government leader, that it takes a special type of incompetence to increase the public service in this country by 53%, spending $21 billion more in the public service while achieving what? — the largest public service strike in the history of the country. The Prime Minister has achieved this marvellous realization while spending $22 billion on outside consultants.
Honourable senators, that is $1,400 per year, per household, for those outside consultants.
You have to admit, government leader, that is a special type of ability. Can you please share with this chamber what kind of skill set and what kinds of policies are required in order to achieve this high level of incompetence?
Thank you for your question. I do not accept your assertion that this is a measure of incompetence.
The civil service has done, and will continue to do, important work on behalf of Canadians. They did extraordinary work through the pandemic, above and beyond any reasonable expectations. They did deliver.
The use of additional assistance through consultants was a needed and appropriate measure to assist Canadians through this period and to ensure that government services were delivered.
I simply do not accept your assertion. Therefore, I cannot and will not answer your question.
I know that you do not accept my assertion and that you cannot answer my question. However, the reality is that while you’ve spent like drunken sailors, the result should be that every single pothole in the company should be filled, infrastructure should be pristine, all Canadians should have doctors, our health care system should be accelerating, our education system should be the best in the country and we should have passports arriving at our homes within minutes. I could go on and on, but these are some facts that you’re just not willing to accept.
I’ll give you a few more facts. Government leader, right now the average Canadian spends over $2,000 per month in rent. In the Greater Toronto Area it is over $3,000 per month. This year, families will spend $1,065 more in groceries. The truth of the matter is that this is a result of the government’s free spending style with no fiscal anchor.
The truth is that you came into power in 2015 promising to be the government that would defend working-class and middle-class Canadians and those working hard to join the middle class. When you look at these statistics, your government and its policies have pummelled the middle class and poured pain on the poor in this country.
The question is simple: Will you apologize — you, the Prime Minister and Minister Freeland — for the pain that has been bestowed on the middle class and the poor, and will you finally acknowledge that you have to change course vis-à-vis your fiscal policies?
The government is not going to apologize for helping Canadians. You listed a litany of issues — potholes, health care — many of which are outside of provincial jurisdiction. Of course, it is the privilege of the opposition to say what they want without having to offer real solutions.
Here is what the Government of Canada has done to offer solutions: As part of Bill C-46, the government has offered a grocery rebate to 11 million Canadian households — which I will be speaking to later today and which I hope we will debate.
The government is providing $2 billion to provinces to assist them with health care challenges — provincial jurisdiction, federal assistance.
The government has struck agreements in principle with nine provinces in terms of health care transfers, representing a huge injection of funds into the provincial coffers — again, in areas of provincial jurisdiction but of benefit to Canadians.
In addition, the government has provided assistance to Canadians — which I have catalogued on earlier occasions — to help them with challenges based on rising rents, not only in Toronto but elsewhere in the country. The government has also provided assistance to deal with the impact that inflation has had. Happily, inflation is coming down, but the government knows and appreciates that Canadians are still struggling to make ends meet. That is why the government is there. These are the facts that matter to Canadians.
