Honourable senators, I noticed the enthusiasm generated in the chamber when the page brought me my podium. I know you are all anxiously looking forward to Episode 3 of Trudeau’s legacy, “An Unstitched Social Safety Net.”

Honourable senators, I rise to continue my series of speeches on Justin Trudeau’s legacy. Those of you who want to take your leave, do so quickly. This is like PVR: You can record it and watch it later on.

In my dreams, yes. I dream about it a lot; so do a lot of other people. It might be your nightmare. It’s my dream.

Today, I want to focus on the state of Canada’s social safety net under the Trudeau government. I know that for some of the Trudeau-appointed senators, having a Conservative senator point out the failures of Justin Trudeau is a colossal waste of time, as we heard the other day right here in Question Period. They would prefer to debate the virtue of the Liberal 2015 agenda and how enlightened they all are.

I’m sorry to break the news, colleagues. Canadians are hurting. And, no, stating the facts about that and pointing out the responsibility of Justin Trudeau for this suffering are not a colossal waste of time. It is a fact that over the last nine years, Canadians have seen and felt the constant unstitching of our social safety net. Not a week goes by that we don’t read a story or view a report on the state of homelessness in this country, on the near impossibility of Canadians’ becoming homeowners or on the state of food banks that are being stretched by the overwhelming demands placed on them.

Under Justin Trudeau, housing costs have doubled, mortgage payments have doubled, and rents have doubled. After nine years of Justin Trudeau, one in four Canadians are skipping meals because they can’t afford to eat three times a day.

I don’t know how this isn’t worth listening to. In the last three years alone, the use of food banks has increased by 50%. There is 38% more homelessness in our country compared to 2019. There are now 256 homeless encampments in Toronto alone. It is becoming clearer and clearer that the primary needs of vulnerable Canadians are unmet in the ongoing affordability crisis. Buying food is becoming more difficult. Owning or renting a home is nearly impossible. Universal health care is less accessible. Food, shelter and health care — more and more Canadians struggle to access those basic needs. That is the Canada that Justin Trudeau is leaving behind. This is Justin Trudeau’s legacy.

Let me read a few of the headlines in Canadian media in the last few weeks: “Canada at ‘critical turning point’ as poverty worsens, warns report”; “Insolvencies jump sharply as Canadians struggle with debt more than ever”; “Almost half of Canadians living paycheque to paycheque: poll”; “Credit debt grows as Canadians struggle with spike in cost of living and bills they just can’t pay”; “1 in 4 Canadians fear income won’t cover basic needs . . .”; “Cost of energy forcing many to go without necessities, StatsCan survey says”; “Financial stress taking toll on Canadians’ mental health, personal relationships”; “Food insecurity in Canada at a crisis stage”; “Canadians getting sick trying to cut food costs: study”; “Canadian food banks on the brink: ‘This is not a sustainable situation’”; “Housing crisis. Foodflation. Record gas prices. Canada is at a crossroads . . .”; “Most Canadians think economy, health care worse under Trudeau . . .”; “The Trudeau paradox of more spending and more hunger”; “Trudeau cranks up spending but Canadians are worse off.”

Those are not Conservative talking points, colleagues. Those are headlines in the news media — the media that are deemed acceptable by the Liberals and the Trudeau-appointed senators.

This should not be a surprise. Canada is getting poorer and poorer. Canada’s inflation-adjusted GDP per capita has fallen 3% in the last four years. This is one of the steepest and longest declines of this measure of wealth in Canadian history. American GDP per capita has grown by more than 8% since 2019, while Canada’s has fallen. Canada’s economy is underperforming the American economy by the widest margin since 1965.

Justin Trudeau’s policies have driven out investments, weakened workers’ paycheques and increased the cost of living for every Canadian. They are why we are in a productivity crisis. Had they held the same trend line that the former Conservative government left them on, Canadians would be $4,200 richer today. Instead, we are in an affordability crisis, a productivity crisis and at risk of a debt crisis.

Colleagues, it is simply shameful that in a country as rich as Canada there are so many people who live on an empty stomach, who cannot afford a nourishing meal.

After nine years of Justin Trudeau, poverty and food insecurity continue to climb. Nearly one in five households in Ontario are struggling to put food on the table, according to a study released just a few months ago. Last year, food banks had to handle a record 2 million visits in a single month, with a million more people expected in 2024, and one in ten people in Toronto have to rely on food banks to survive.

Food Banks Canada’s 2024 Poverty Report Card showed that almost 50% of Canadians feel financially worse off compared to last year, while 25% of Canadians are experiencing food insecurity. That means close to 10 million people will go to bed tonight unsure if they will be able to have three good meals tomorrow.

Colleagues, we all got up and had a great breakfast today and we had lunch, yet 10 million people in our country will go to bed tonight not knowing if they can have three good meals tomorrow. That is Justin Trudeau’s legacy.

On top of this, Food Banks Canada reported that the cost of living has become so high that food banks have seen a 50% increase in visits since 2021. As a direct consequence of the Trudeau government’s inflationary spending and taxes, millions of Canadians are struggling to keep their heads above water.

The Salvation Army published its Spring 2024 Research report last week. This showed that nearly one third of Canadians continue to feel pessimistic about the future of their personal finances, while 25% of Canadians continue to be extremely concerned about having enough income to cover their basic needs.

This report also showed that nearly 75% of Canadians face challenges managing limited financial resources. This has contributed to a wave of Canadians who continue to deprioritize seeking medical help for financial reasons.

Lori Nikkel, CEO of Second Harvest, sums it up well:

People in Canada can’t keep up with rising food costs. More people are being pushed towards food charity, which for most people comes as a last resort. Food charities already struggle to meet the current demand, with many of them being forced to turn people away and add their names to growing waitlists for support. Our systems are buckling under the pressure.

And it is not just the use of food banks that is alarming. According to Statistics Canada, in 2022, 18% of Canadian families reported experiencing food insecurity in the past 12 months, up from 16% in 2021. That situation has worsened since.

Life is becoming too expensive for Canadians. According to Canada’s Food Price Report 2024, food expenditures for a family of four will cost $16,297 — an increase of $700 from just a year ago. “JustinFlation” has burned a hole in all of our pockets. To cope, some families have to eat less, skip a meal or eat food that is past its best-before date at the risk of becoming sick.

Colleagues, there are now groups on social media on how to find food in dumpsters. This is Canada, one of the world’s richest countries —

— after nine years of Liberal failed policies.

What I find troubling is the growth in the number of working poor in Canada. People who have a job — sometimes even two or three jobs — are forced to use the food bank or live in their car. These people are filling their end of the bargain. They work hard and stay out of trouble, but society only offers them a life of poverty, without any hope of living a normal life. This, colleagues, is heartbreaking. Less food for more money at the grocery store — that is Justin Trudeau’s legacy.

Having to skip a meal, put water in your milk or go through the garbage to feed yourself — that is Justin Trudeau’s legacy.

Having to rely on a food bank to feed your family, even if you are working 50 hours a week — that is Justin Trudeau’s legacy.

If you think that in Trudeau’s Canada the food insecurity crisis is bad, I’m sorry to tell you that the housing crisis is even worse.

Under Justin Trudeau, Canadian housing prices have doubled, making Canada one of the most expensive and unaffordable housing markets in the world. The reason is simple: There is simply not enough supply to answer the demand. Can you imagine? We are the second-largest country in the world, but we do not have enough housing space. This is simply mind‑boggling. It is the result of Liberal policies that build bureaucracies and not homes.

Honourable senators, this has a more direct impact on two categories of people.

First, the market has become less and less accessible for first‑time home buyers, even if the federal government has tried policies to help. For example, the Liberal government announced the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive program to help young Canadians buy their first home. The conditions to be approved were so restrictive that only a small number of Canadians could qualify. Furthermore, the limit imposed was so low that the incentive priced itself out of the hot markets of Toronto and Vancouver.

In 2019, the initial goal was to help 100,000 Canadians purchase their first home. By 2022, only 18,291 Canadians were approved to use the incentive. The program has been such a failure that the government decided to pull the plug a full year before its intended goal of March 2025. From the beginning, it was clear that the modalities of the policy would fall far short. Our Social Affairs Committee pointed out that the threshold needed to be higher, and the industry representatives went further: Such an incentive from the government could risk raising housing prices. Like this government does repeatedly, instead of admitting defeat and improving its legislation, it simply dug in its heels and gaslit Canadians for years before finally quietly retreating and killing its failed program.

The second class of people directly hit by the failed housing policies of the Trudeau government are the renters. Over the last few years, the renters’ market has followed the trend of being less accessible. According to Rentals.ca, the asking rents for a two-bedroom property in Canada averaged $2,350 in February — an increase of 11.7% year over year. In fact, since 2015 — the year that Trudeau and the Liberals came to power — rents have more than doubled in Canada. How can Canadians be expected to keep up?

For Canadians being squeezed out of the renting market, what are their options? Purchasing a home is out of the question. If you don’t have rich parents willing to help you, there is no way. So we hear and read about it every week: encampments in every major city and spreading to smaller communities, homelessness rates going up and shelters being overrun. Canada’s Federal Housing Advocate, Marie-Josée Houle, declared the following to CBC News:

It is a physical manifestation of exactly how broken our housing and homelessness system is from coast to coast to coast in Canada. It needs urgent measures . . . .

She continued, “Government must act immediately to save lives.”

According to her report, an estimated 20% to 25% of homeless people across the country live in tent encampments, affecting not just major cities but also rural regions. There are more and more tent cities, and they are larger and larger.

In my city — the City of Winnipeg — Marion Willis, Executive Director of St. Boniface Street Links, says that there are more encampments than ever before east of the Red River.

We have to face the facts: People living in these tent cities are easy targets for drug dealers, pimps and other gangs. Homeless Canadians are dying in the encampments due to addictions or unsanitary conditions.

The Liberals are claiming that they are throwing money at the problem. In this chamber, we hear — time after time — about how they’re throwing money at the problem and hoping something sticks. But there is zero result.

The Auditor General already stated that the Trudeau government will miss all its targets on the reduction of homelessness in Canada. Last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that despite $443 million in new annual spending aimed to reduce homelessness, the number of people without a roof over their head has grown by 20% in Canada.

This housing crisis is a direct result of Justin Trudeau’s failed policies. He opened the door to millions of newcomers, without making sure there would be places for them to live in. He is maintaining bureaucracies that stop the construction of new housing. He has fuelled inflation, which led to a rise in mortgage interest rates. He is now punishing the owners of rental buildings with an increase in the capital gains tax.

Things will only get worse. We recently learned that the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions reported that many Canadians will face a payment shock when they renew their mortgages at much higher rates over the next two years. This could affect as many as 76% of Canadians with outstanding mortgages.

People paying more and more to house themselves — that is Justin Trudeau’s legacy. Young Canadians unable to afford to buy a home — that is Justin Trudeau’s legacy. People crammed in small apartments because rents are unaffordable — that is Justin Trudeau’s legacy. People living and dying on the streets in Canada — that is Justin Trudeau’s legacy.

While people are struggling to put food on their table and a roof over their heads, health care in Canada is breaking down. On about every metric possible, public health care in Canada is worse now than it has ever been. More than 6 million Canadians say they do not have access to primary care physicians. Median wait times for medical treatment are the highest they’ve ever been — at 27.7 weeks.

A report by SecondStreet.org found that at least 17,032 patients died in Canada while waiting for surgery or diagnostic tests between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023 — over 17,000 people in one year. In 2022, life expectancy in Canada rolled back to 81.3 years, a full year less compared to 2019.

Moreover, an August 2023 survey by the Canadian Medical Association found that 26% of Canadians considered health care to be in excellent or very good condition, down from 48% in 2015. Canadians’ confidence in the health care system is decreasing at an alarming rate. Who can blame them? Last November, according to statistics from Ontario Health, the average wait time in an emergency room was 22 hours. Only 23% of patients met a doctor within the eight-hour target.

Colleagues, those are facts. This is Canada under Justin Trudeau. All these symptoms confirm that health care in Canada is broken. The Canada Health Act provides that Canadian health care policy is “. . . to facilitate reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers.” Canadians do not have access to health services. Justin Trudeau does not respect the Canada Health Act.

Some of you who want to defend your leader, the Prime Minister who appointed you, will say that health care is a provincial jurisdiction. My answer is this: How can all 10 provinces be equally bad? There is clearly a Canadian health care problem since our system is a failure from St. John’s to Victoria. Canada now has the worst health care systems among the richest countries, even though we are paying the most money for them.

According to the Canadian Institute for Health, Canada ranked last in access to primary health care in a survey of 10 high‑income countries. Canada also ranked last with respect to the ability to get a same- or next-day appointment to see a doctor or nurse; only 26% of Canadian adults succeeded in doing so, down from 46% in 2016.

Out of 30 countries, Canada ranked twenty-third in terms of the number of beds dedicated to physical care, twenty-fifth in terms of MRIs, twenty-sixth in terms of CT scans and twenty‑eighth in terms of the number of doctors. But that is not because of a lack of funds. Canada ranks highest for expenditures on health care as a percentage of GDP among 30 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, nations.

Sadly, colleagues, the level of care in Canada is deteriorating, and this has dire consequences. Canadians who can’t see a doctor are more susceptible to complications. People who have been able to see a doctor and get a diagnosis see their conditions deteriorate or even die while they are on a waiting list. A new normal that’s emerging in our public health care is hallway health care — patients waiting on a stretcher to receive care due to overcapacity. And then we have the too frequent cases of those who go to the ER and don’t get help.

For example, in Nova Scotia last year, a 67-year-old, Charlene Snow, waited in the ER department for seven hours before giving up and going home. One hour later, Charlene Snow sadly passed away due to health complications.

I was shocked to hear the story of Normand Meunier, who sought a medically assisted death after developing a huge bedsore while lying on a stretcher in the ER for four days. This poor man was simply abandoned by the system. As I said, these issues are plaguing every province and territory from coast to coast to coast.

Yes, COVID-19 happened, and that accelerated the downfall of our health care system. But it is not an excuse to let the situation worsen. It should be a motivation for our federal government to find a national solution to the delivery of health care in Canada. We need more family doctors, better health care infrastructure and — to overcome the obstacles between Canadians and the health care they need — federal leadership.

Instead of working with the provinces to innovate in delivery care, Justin Trudeau has decided to fight with them. His latest intrusions in dental care and pharmacare are an example of the Liberals’ tendency to trample on provincial jurisdictions. Instead of fast-tracking foreign health care workers in our immigration system, Justin Trudeau has decided to prioritize other groups of newcomers.

For example, last week, the Journal de Montréal had a story on two nurses who cannot work in Gatineau because Immigration Canada is dragging its feet in granting them their work permits, even if there is a dire need for their services. Why do we have such a useless bureaucracy?

Instead of looking at why other countries do better on health care and how we could innovate, Justin Trudeau refuses to modernize the Canada Health Act. The Liberals are stuck in their 1970s vision that Canada’s health care system is the best in the world, but the facts are the facts. We have become laggards in that area. The decline of the Canadian health care system over the last nine years lies squarely on Justin Trudeau’s shoulders and will be part of his legacy.

As I said, the failed policies of the Trudeau Liberals and their incompetence in delivering services to Canadians spans all departments. And while all Canadians are affected by the policies stuck in ideology of this Liberal-NDP government and the constant failure to provide even the most basic of services, some groups are suffering more than others.

The first group I want to talk about is our veterans and the members of our Armed Forces.

The Liberal government’s treatment of our veterans is an embarrassment, from Veterans Affairs suggesting assisted suicide to veterans looking for help to a complete breakdown on homelessness. This is not the way to thank and take care of those who put their lives on the line for our freedoms. According to most recent estimates, more than 2,600 veterans experience homelessness annually. Since 2018, Veterans Affairs has had in place an emergency fund paying $2,500 in grants to homeless veterans. Every year, this program is oversubscribed.

While the National Housing Strategy objective is to prioritize housing needs of the most vulnerable, including our veterans, it has provided shelter for 277 veterans in four years. We need close to 10 times that number. The longer we wait, the more dire the situation becomes. While Justin Trudeau claims housing is not primarily a federal responsibility, supporting our veterans is clearly 100% his jurisdiction. However, according to a report authored by McGill researchers, there is a lack of leadership with respect to veteran housing, which is split between federal departments with no coordination. Our social safety net is failing our veterans, colleagues, and this is Justin Trudeau’s legacy — and his lack of consideration for our military personnel extends to our current troops.

A recent headline in the Ottawa Citizen read: “Soldiers had to rely on food donations because of lack of military support during Ottawa training.” The Willis College staff had to create a food cupboard for military personnel so they wouldn’t go hungry during specialized cybertraining. They were not getting paid on time or initially eligible for housing allowances while in Ottawa. What is going on in our military for soldiers to rely on food donations? Why are our soldiers in the Baltic states forced to go and buy warm clothes themselves because they are under‑equipped? Why are our soldiers having to live in tents because of a lack of decent housing on certain bases?

In Justin Trudeau’s Canada, our military — those we are asking to defend us — do not have their basic needs covered. Food, clothing, shelter — we cannot provide those for our brave men and women in uniform. Even for them, the safety net is unstitched after nine years of Justin Trudeau. The accumulation of a decade of neglect by the Trudeau government culminates in the situation our military finds itself in today: left to themselves while in the military, left to themselves once done their service. This lack of respect for those who put their lives on the line for us is part of Justin Trudeau’s legacy.

Colleagues, Conservatives will change this. It is time we have a Conservative government that will address the real problems our Armed Forces face — the lack of modern equipment, the lack of manpower and low morale. We all know it is not by virtue signalling that the Canadian Armed Forces will attract new recruits. It is not by going fully woke that we will improve morale. Conservatives will make sure that we have a modern and fully prepared army, navy and air force. It is time to stop being happy to place with Luxembourg at the bottom of the NATO list. It is time for a common-sense approach with our veterans, soldiers, sailors, airwomen and airmen.

As I said, no one is protected by the reckless policy and lack of leadership from this Liberal government.

Another group that has seen their safety net diminished in the last nine years are Indigenous peoples. First Nations housing is a federal responsibility and another clear failure by Justin Trudeau. Let me share with you a passage from the Auditor General’s report on housing in First Nations communities:

Indigenous Services Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation have been mandated to work with First Nations to meet their housing needs by 2030. We found that 80% of these needs were still not met with 7 years left before 2030.

It continues:

From 2018-19 to 2022-23, Indigenous Services Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation provided funding to build 11,754 new housing units and repair 15,859 existing units in First Nations communities. This represents 21% of the new housing units and 20% of the repairs to existing units needed to close the gap.

There was no meaningful improvement in housing conditions in First Nations communities. From 2015-16 to 2021-22, the percentage of homes in need of major repairs decreased from 20.8% to 19.7%, while the percentage of homes in First Nations communities that needed to be replaced increased from 5.6% to 6.5%.

Colleagues, this is a complete and total failure from top to bottom on housing for First Nations communities. It is more proof that the Liberal government will prioritize talk to concrete actions.

Housing is only one part of the failures of the Trudeau Liberals to improve infrastructure on reserves. Most of the roads servicing reserves are in horrible condition, and delivering clean water remains a challenge. The situation is no better in the North, where Inuit are forced to live in houses too small and under‑equipped and where food prices reach world-record levels.

Indigenous communities are a microcosm of what is happening across the country, where the housing crisis collides with the ongoing opioid and drug crisis. Just like the Auditor General justly observed the Liberal government’s failure on housing for First Nations, the chiefs and their communities themselves are raising the alarm on the opioid crisis by declaring various states of emergency from coast to coast to coast.

In March 2023, Keewatin Tribal Council, representing 11 communities throughout northern Manitoba, declared a state of emergency due to system-wide failures in public safety, health and infrastructure. The Chief of God’s Lake First Nation community pointed out illegal substance abuse as the main issue that continues to this day. Their local motel has been turned into a homeless shelter, and all 10 rooms are occupied.

What was the government’s response? Indigenous Services Canada sent $300,000 for short-, medium- and long-term strategies to address the crisis in 11 communities. For a population of 20,000 people, the government offered $300,000.

Another example is the Blood Tribe nation in Alberta, which declared a state of emergency over an addiction crisis. While the provincial government in Alberta stepped up with $30 million to build reserve-based recovery communities that fuse sweat lodges with abstinence-based treatment, the federal government has been missing in action.

Beyond the issue of addiction, the poor living conditions and hopelessness for the future have created a mental health crisis in Indigenous communities. The suicide rate is simply alarming. But worse, it is teenagers who are committing suicide. Imagine, colleagues, the suffering of a 12-year-old boy for him to take his life. In January, First Nation leaders held an emergency meeting in Ottawa to discuss this mental health crisis that they warned could get even worse.

For all the talk by the federal government on renewing the relationship with the Indigenous peoples in this country, the substance abuse crisis is a sad reminder of how little the Liberals have achieved and how much more needs to be done. Barriers remain for Indigenous people to access appropriate health care support in a suicide crisis that has been going on for years in their communities at a much higher rate than non-Indigenous populations.

The safety net for Indigenous people to receive proper support is full of holes as well. Indigenous communities in Canada deserve more than a holiday in September where the Prime Minister can go surfing in Tofino. They need — now more than ever — a federal government that will be a partner to tackle various housing crises, substance-abuse crises and an ongoing suicide crisis by strengthening the social safety net.

Since 2015, the federal government’s budget for Indigenous affairs has doubled, but some reserves still have to boil their drinking water. Indigenous communities still live in poverty and inadequate housing, unable to access the most basic of social services. More money, no progress — that is a hallmark of the Justin Trudeau government. Instead of unlocking the potential of Indigenous peoples by allowing them to profit from the exploitation of the resources on their territory, instead of providing them with good-paying jobs, the Trudeau Liberals have decided to keep them in a constant state of crisis, which will make them and keep them dependent on the federal government. The result of this ideology is that too many Indigenous live in Third World conditions in Canada. That will be Justin Trudeau’s legacy regarding our relationship with First Nations, Inuit and Métis: a lot of talk, shiny objects — like a holiday — and a huge increase in spending, but no results. It clearly is time for a new leader and a new approach, an approach based on common sense and mutual respect under the leadership of a new Conservative prime minister.

Under Justin Trudeau, Canada is welcoming historical numbers of immigrants. These people are also victims of the Trudeau Liberals’ incompetence. The Canadian safety net cannot protect them. Thousands of asylum seekers are forced to live in shelters or on the streets.

In Peel, a suburban region in Greater Toronto, the shelter system is running at 300% of capacity, with asylum seekers occupying more than 70% of the beds and many more camping on the streets, according to the mayor of Brampton, Ontario.

Several of those newcomers are forced to use the food banks. A Toronto-area food bank Feed Scarborough, sounded the alarm following a dramatic 112% increase in new clients across its five locations. Based on the clientele demographics, 95% of those relying on Feed Scarborough are not Canadian born, and less than three quarters — 72% — have been in Canada for less than a year. Who can forget the riots in Montreal as recent immigrants were trying to access a food bank?

Even those who have been here for a few years are finding it harder and harder to live in Justin Trudeau’s Canada. The Canadian dream is turning into a nightmare for many immigrants due to the high cost of living and rental shortages.

What do these people do? They leave Canada. Rising emigration numbers hint to newcomers being forced to turn their backs on a country that they chose to make their adopted home.

Febby Lyan, a Singaporean immigrant to Canada, garnered nearly 400,000 views on a recent video about why people are leaving Canada. Over 20 minutes she detailed rising homelessness, rising crime, limited job opportunities, worsening affordability and even a few qualms with the political situation.

The YouTuber Angry Canadian Immigrant wrote an entire e‑book accusing Canada of running an immigration system designed to scam newcomers:

“After three years in Canada I see it as one of the most overrated countries in the world; very high taxes, enormous cost of life, very few well-paying jobs with insane competition for them . . . no access to health care whatsoever,” he says in one of his most popular videos, Top 5 reasons not to move to Canada.

We used to be the place to which people around the world wanted to come. Now these immigrants are writing about why people should not come to Canada. Again, these are not Conservative talking points; these are the conclusions of more and more immigrants.

The notion of Canada as an immigrant trap has even started to make the foreign press. The Indian news channel WION broadcast a segment titled “Canada: The Dream that Became a Nightmare.”

Preliminary results of the Canadian Bureau for International Education’s 2023 annual review have shown the weakening of the Canadian brand as a safe, stable and welcoming place for international students.

The mess in the immigration system is Justin Trudeau’s legacy. The influx of immigrants was a purely ideological move by the Trudeau Liberals, but they failed to plan for the arrival of those newcomers. This has consequences on the price of housing, our health care system and our school system. More and more immigrants realize that life under Justin Trudeau is not what they were promised. Abandoning the same immigrants that he enticed to come here is Justin Trudeau’s legacy.

Another group that has been let down by Justin Trudeau is young Canadians. For those who want to be part of the middle class someday, the dream is slipping out of their fingers. Nearly two thirds of young Canadians revealed that their financial situation, shaped by the housing crisis, affects their mental health, and that living from paycheque to paycheque in the basement of your parents’ home does not help with your social life.

Justin Trudeau’s failed policies have affected nearly all facets of young Canadians’ lives: their finances, their social life, their self-esteem and their mental health.

Young Canadians feel stuck and have to wait longer to achieve societal rites of passage. Leaving the family nest, buying a home and starting a family are all delayed.

With the sudden population growth due to the reckless immigration policies of the Liberals, young Canadians are now being squeezed out like never before.

According to Statistics Canada:

. . . This change may benefit Canadian society by increasing the size of the working-age population . . . . However, the high number of new working age Canadians may also put pressure on the delivery of services to the population, housing, transportation and infrastructure.

How can young Canadians be optimistic about their future when their federal government keeps failing them? At every turn, they hit a wall put in place by the Liberal-NDP coalition.

Young Canadians’ dream of being part of the middle class is stuck in the affordability crisis perpetuated by the Trudeau government. They cannot leave the family nest due to an unaffordable housing market, but the rental market is not an enviable option, with rents being so high that it is impossible for them to save for a down payment.

For years, the Liberal-NDP coalition buried their heads in the sand while young Canadians were suffering. It took Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party to surge up in the polls for the Liberal government to rush and put together eye-catching headlines a few weeks ahead of this year’s budget.

Suddenly it becomes urgent to address the issues that young Canadians face. Justin Trudeau wants to put on the image and illusion of the Liberal government that actually cares. However, other than dividing Canadians by starting a phony class war and blaming Baby Boomers for the condition of younger generations, we all know the Liberals will achieve nothing. It is the strategy the Liberal government has used time and time again: Try to look like busybodies by throwing money at a problem without any concrete plan. Our Prime Minister looks like a weather vane in the middle of a hurricane, throwing money everywhere and hoping it settles on something, but instead billions are being lost in the storm.

Canadians 18 to 34 are hurting. Their future is bleak. They believe less and less the promise that has been at the core of Canada’s social contract: Get a good education, work hard and you will be able to have a good life which includes a good job, a home for your family and the assurance that there is a safety net if things go wrong. Justin Trudeau’s decade in power will have been a lost decade for a generation of Canadians.

Finally, one other group that has suffered from the incompetence and failed policy of the Trudeau Liberals is seniors.

The large majority of seniors live on a fixed income. The devastating “JustinFlation” hurt these people disproportionately. They are unable to negotiate an increase of revenues to compensate for the increase in the cost of feeding and housing themselves.

Last week, the National Post told the story of 75-year-old Dorothy Bagan. She says:

I try to be really careful, really smart about my spending, especially with groceries. I can usually do a whole week of food for only $35.

Imagine, colleagues, she manages to live on $35 a week for food. As the newspaper points out, Bagan’s other costs are rising, including a $600 monthly mortgage payment combined with nearly $250 in utilities, a bill that has nearly doubled since COVID. Ms. Bagan summarizes the dilemma for seniors when she says, “Like a lot of seniors, my bills keep growing. But my income isn’t.” There are hundreds of thousands of seniors like her.

Last fall, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Seniors’ Advocate reported that 32% of seniors in that province cannot afford basic necessities, including food, rent and medical supplies. This is Justin Trudeau’s legacy: One third of seniors cannot afford the basic necessities.

These people worked hard all their lives, trusting the system to help them when they would be old, but our safety net is failing them. After nine years of Justin Trudeau, food is costing more and more. The failed Liberal policies, like the carbon tax, mean that heating their homes costs more for seniors, and the increase in interest rates and rent is hurting the most vulnerable seniors.

Seniors are, of course, the principal users of our health care system. They are the main victims of the failures that I mentioned before. Millions of Canadians rely on Old Age Security, or OAS. While the federal government increased OAS in 2022, it was limited to those over 75 years of age.

What about the seniors living in poverty who are between the ages of 65 to 75? According to the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, the cohort between 65 and 75 is the most needful part of the whole older Canadian group. These people are completely left behind by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

OAS was scheduled to switch the delivery system in 2023, but as of last October, that deadline was pushed to 2025. The longer it takes, the more at risk the delivery systems are. Can you imagine the catastrophic result a simple delay of 10 days in the delivery of payments to seniors could have? The federal government presided over Phoenix, probably the biggest failure of a computer system in the history of Canada. We are not immune to this, colleagues.

Who in this chamber can say that they have 100% confidence in Justin Trudeau and his team to deliver on the modernization of this system?

I don’t think even our government leader would have that confidence.

The Auditor General’s report stated clearly in black and white that the delivery systems of Employment Insurance, or EI, and OAS are at risk of failure. The plans are behind schedule and — surprise, surprise — over budget.

The report says that the project was estimated to cost $1.75 billion in 2017. The Auditor General notes that although no benefits — zero — had yet moved to the new platform, the cost had increased 43% to $2.7 billion. They have not done anything yet.

Times are tough for our seniors. Justin Trudeau is letting them down. Worse, he is blaming them for the problems of younger Canadians. The “Great Divider” would like us to believe that folks like Dorothy Bagan, who has $35 a week to eat, are to blame for the fact that 30-year-olds live in the basement of their parents.

Colleagues, I want to take a few minutes to address our Employment Insurance system. As I just said, the delivery system for EI is close to being obsolete, and there are reasons to fear that the government will not be able to complete the modernization. But for EI, it is not just the delivery system that has to be reviewed. It is the system itself.

The Unemployment Insurance Act was introduced in 1940 and later became what we now call EI. It is commonly known as Canada’s primary safety net, but it is getting old. Employees and employers have been asking for years, if not decades, for the EI program to be modernized to better reflect the labour market of today.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw shortcomings and difficulty in adapting to emergency situations. This should have been a lesson learned from the pandemic, and the Liberals did promise to act. In fact, the mandate letter of the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion said:

Taking into account input received through consultations on the future of Employment Insurance (EI), by Summer 2022, bring forward and begin implementing a plan to modernize the EI system for the 21st century, building a stronger and more inclusive system that covers all workers, including workers in seasonal employment and persons employed by digital platforms, ensuring the system is simpler and more responsive for workers and employers. . . .

The minister was mandated to implement by the summer of 2022 a modernized EI system. But the Trudeau government decided to not go forward with the reform due to worry it would drive up premiums. Seeing their polling numbers plummet, the Liberals do what Liberals always do: They chose their political future ahead of Canada’s future. They did not dare do the right thing and modernize the EI system as they, themselves, realized they had to. History tells us that when a government messes up with EI, voters are angry.

So instead of doing its job, the Trudeau government prefers to stick its head in the sand, yet again.

The necessary reforms to our Employment Insurance system will not be part of Justin Trudeau’s legacy. Instead, it will fall on Pierre Poilievre to repair it, just like he will have to repair so many parts of the federal government.

While Justin Trudeau continues to say Canada is not broken, clearly the evidence I have shared with you today — and the day‑to-day reality of Canadians — says the exact opposite. More Canadians today are struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their head. Canadians do not receive the health care they deserve and the government support that they need when times are difficult.

According to a recent poll, 70% of all Canadians agree with the statement that it feels like everything is broken in Canada right now. That, colleagues, includes 43% of Liberal voters and 66% of NDP voters.

More poverty, more homelessness. That is Justin Trudeau’s legacy. People having trouble feeding themselves and their family, people having to pay too much to house themselves and their families. That is Justin Trudeau’s legacy. The worst health system among the richest countries. That is Justin Trudeau’s legacy. The most vulnerable of our society left behind, abandoned by a government who cannot deliver even the most basic of services. That is Justin Trudeau’s legacy. An unstitched social safety net where more and more people fall through the cracks. That is Justin Trudeau’s legacy.

The only people who are not disillusioned by the current state of the country are the Trudeau fanatics. The Liberal-NDP coalition continues to spend recklessly for future generations to foot the bill. Even in their sunset months of being in power, they continue to spend recklessly for future generations to foot the bill.

Their solution to all problems is to spend, spend, spend and to build more bureaucracy instead of helping Canadians. Colleagues, it is time for a Conservative government to bring common sense back to Ottawa and to Canada.

Canadians are looking at their wallets being stretched out, looking at their families struggling to make ends meet and looking at their communities being overrun by homelessness and substance abuse. They realize that Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh are just not worth the cost. But the good thing is that Canada was not like that before Justin Trudeau, and it will not be like that after he is gone.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that light is becoming larger. Soon, Canadians will have a chance — a chance that all Canadians are waiting for — to vote this incompetent Liberal government out of power and give themselves a Pierre Poilievre government. This new team will axe the tax to stop this money grab disguised as an environmental policy. It will build more houses and revive the Canadian dream of owning a home. It will fix the budget to make sure that Canadians get what they pay for. It will put an end to the radical policies that favour criminals over victims so that we can all live in safe communities. And it will work with the provinces to rebuild a strong health care system that heals when you need it.

Colleagues, there is no end to what I have to say on this subject and many others. I will need to take a break for now. With that, I move the adjournment of the debate for the balance of my time. Thank you, colleagues.

Would the honourable senator take a question?

Yes, I’ll take one.

Thank you, Senator Plett, for that entertaining — as always — speech. I’m not sure that all my colleagues were listening that closely, however, because your lament about seniors seems to ring a little untrue, given you were part of a government and a party where Prime Minister Harper wanted to increase the Old Age Security level from age 65 to 67. If you’re so concerned about seniors, why did you not oppose that at the time?

Well, yes, that’s indeed a good question. I was not standing up here defending any other government. I was up here saying exactly what your friend Justin Trudeau has been doing over the last nine years, and will continue to do. Again, with that, I move the adjournment for the rest of my time.