QUESTION PERIOD — Finance
Affordability for Canadians
April 29, 2026
Government leader, despite what you said earlier, everyone in this place knows I would never complain about a deficit coming in lower than expected. I am continually struck by how quickly Liberal governments find ways to spend any fiscal room they have.
Instead of applying the $11.4-billion windfall to reduce debt or even capitalize the Prime Minister’s proposed fund, your government has chosen to introduce new spending that risks worsening affordability. In fact, yesterday’s fiscal update adds $4.9 billion in new spending this year and over $11 billion next year.
Senator Moreau, yesterday’s deficit figures were driven by favourable external conditions, as I explained earlier. What happens when those conditions turn sour, and your government has already exhausted what little fiscal capacity Canada’s taxpayers have left? What will you do then? Borrow some more?
A minute ago, Senator Ataullahjan was asking about the important affordability measures mentioned in yesterday’s announcement. This included $42 million to enable factory-built housing, making home builders more efficient and innovative, accelerating over $7 billion in low-cost loans to speed up the construction of up to 16,500 new rental homes, making it easier to access the Disability Tax Credit, extending support to eligible seasonal workers and a whole-of-government competition plan to ensure competition in order to prioritize through government policy. So there are a number of measures that you refuse to recognize but that Canadians want us to implement, and that is exactly what the government is delivering.
What we want is for your government to consider our ideas not only during or right before election campaigns but also in between them. It would be good. You might even become efficient. If you won’t take it from me, listen to Scotiabank’s head of capital markets economist. He says:
. . . the affordability messages provided by the government were curiously inconsistent as more spending incrementally complicates the aim of getting affordability under control . . . .
It’s very simple. Why won’t you listen to the economists at Scotiabank if you don’t want to listen to the Conservative opposition —
Thank you, Senator Housakos.
Your great idea was not to lower taxes for 22 million Canadians because, in the House of Commons, you voted against that measure. It was probably not to cut the consumer carbon tax because, in the House of Commons, you voted against that too. It also was not to protect Pharmacare, dental care and child care because if that was your idea, why did you vote against it in the other place when it lowered the requirement for accessing the Disability Tax Credit —
Thank you, Senator Moreau.
