Debates of June 9th, 2025

Opposition Motion—Food Inflation and Budgetary Policy

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by congratulating you on being selected as the Deputy Speaker for this Parliament. We wish you all the best. It is good grooming for the next session.

I rise today to speak about the Conservative opposition day motion regarding food inflation and the lack of a Liberal budget. As a businessman, I have always seen budgets as opportunities to provide a clear path forward, one that even shows priorities and what matters most to a company or organization. A budget builds consensus or direction and keeps us all on the same path. In fact, I have heard it said that a budget is a blueprint for freedom, and I would concur. A budget is like a map. It helps us prepare for the future so we can assess how much is coming in and how much is going out. However, a budget is more than just numbers. It is about making wise choices. A good budget takes care of the needs and saves a little for the wants. Let us break that down a bit here.

The Prime Minister, who went across the country claiming he was “the man with the plan”, is not providing the blueprint for his plan. Here we are, about to spend a half a trillion dollars with no budget. Look at what happened right after the throne speech. We were told that our new government would cap operating spending at 2% annually. Then, not even two hours later, a bill was introduced that boosted overall spending by 8%. That is 8% more than the Trudeau government spent in the last year of office, yet we were told the current government would spend less.

The Prime Minister is spending more not on investments but, oddly, on consultants. I remember reading about a senior policy adviser with the Treasury Board who said that when hiring consultants, it was hard to tell if the contract was successful or not. He added that he knew of numerous cases where consultants were hired to check the work of other consultants. In other words, we paid money to consultants to check the work of consultants. What an incompetent government. Here we are, with spending on consultants up to a record $26.1 billion. That is more than a 36% increase in one year. To help us better understand how much that means for the average Canadian citizen, it is roughly $1,400 spent on consultants for every single household in Canada.

As the National Post said, the Liberal government is spending more than the previous Justin Trudeau government did, with no plan on ever getting back to a balanced budget.

We need a budget. That is why Parliament voted for the Conservative amendment to the throne speech calling for a budget this spring. That is also why Conservatives are giving the Prime Minister another opportunity to produce a budget. Canadians need to see a plan that outlines how he will pay for all this spending. Members will remember how, throughout the campaign, we heard Mr. Carney promising that he had a plan ready to go, a plan—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader is rising on a point of order.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is not allowed to use names.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I would remind the member for Provencher that he cannot refer to ministers, cabinet ministers or the Prime Minister by their first or last names.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, members will remember that, during the campaign, the Prime Minister promised that he had a plan ready to go, that “a plan beats no plan”. I ask this: Where is the plan?

By the way, I also want to split my time.

I have read arguments in some media against providing that plan, and none of them are compelling or convincing. What is interesting is that, in my reading, I discovered that the three longest times between budgets were during World War II, during COVID and in 2001. Do members know what I found out? All three of those periods were under Liberal governments.

As I explained at the beginning of my speech, a budget is a plan. It is a direction. It is a path forward that reveals and expresses what is important. As we heard from the National Post's assessment, right now, it appears that there is no intention of ever balancing the budget.

Let us ask that question: Why does rising government debt matter? According to Jay Goldberg in the Winnipeg Sun, “[multiple] studies have shown that an increasing debt-to-GDP ratio puts upward pressure on long-term interest rates, raising borrowing costs for [individuals, families and] governments”, all leading to an increased tax burden for families and the middle class, and creating “barriers to economic growth.”

The truth is that Liberal deficit spending also leads to higher prices at the grocery store. A recent Parliamentary Budget Officer report says the cost of servicing public debt, while currently sitting at $49.1 billion for 2025-26, will rise to just under $70 billion in the 2029-30 fiscal year. That means that, just to carry increased debt, we would be paying $70 billion in interest on our debt alone. Members can imagine what we could be doing with $70 billion, but it is going to go to paying the interest on today's spending.

We may recall that the Prime Minister said that we would judge him by the price Canadians pay at the grocery store. That being the case, let us look at some of those price increases for just this year to date. Beef is up 34%. Oranges are up 26%. Apples are up 18%. White rice is up 14%. Sweet potatoes are up 12%. Beef rib cuts are up almost 12%. Coffee is up 9%. Infant formula is up 9%. Meatless burgers, although I do not know who would eat those, are up 6%. Chicken breasts are up 6%. Pork rib cuts are up 6%. Pork shoulders are up 5%. Eggs are up 3.6%.

I find it very interesting that our supply management food processors have had the least increase. What is concerning is that the most significant increases are in the meat category, the protein that we all so desperately need, with 4% to 34% increases right across the board. Canadians are going to pay almost $17,000 on food this year alone, an increase of $800 from last year, all while two million Canadians visit the food bank each and every month.

How can Canadians afford this? Statistics Canada, in its latest report, looked at the annual income in Canada. The latest information shows that the median household income in our country in 2025 will be $68,400. If we take 30% off of that in taxes, that leaves us with $47,000. In other words, over one-third of a family's after-tax income will go to food alone. We heard in the House today that the cost of living in Ontario averages 52% of household income. That leaves a whopping 13% of a family's income for everything else, including transportation, clothing, entertainment and miscellaneous.

Canadians need more than elbows up. We need to get our elbows down and get to work. The Prime Minister said that he would collect $20 billion from the United States through tariffs, yet tariffs are, in effect, at zero for products coming from the United States. Only weeks ago, we were assured that there would be no more tariffs supplied to Canada, yet here we are. We are now facing a doubling of tariffs on steel and aluminum. With Canada being the world's fourth largest aluminum producer and top aluminum exporter, this is concerning.

In Canada, we produce approximately 3.3 million tonnes of aluminum every year, and all the projections say that production will increase. Demand is expected to increase by as much as 40% in the next five years. Aluminum mining supports 9,500 direct jobs and 20,000 indirect jobs. When we translate those numbers into the impact on working Canadians, in Canada, we are talking about 30,000-plus jobs that are going to be affected by these tariffs.

A 50% tariff was very alarming as the United States was Canada's largest export destination for a aluminum products, which accounted for 92% of total aluminum exports. From what we see, plans continue all around us. For example, I wonder which countries Canada may be talking to regarding the purchase of our raw materials. How are those conversations going?

When the President of the United States returned from a recent trip to the Middle East, he announced, upon his return, hundreds of billions of dollars in trade. According to the presidential announcements, the EGA plans to build a $4-billion plant in Oklahoma next year. That smelter will have the capacity to produce as much as 600,000 tonnes a year of primarily aluminum. This will almost double the production of aluminum in the United States. We cannot be led by these promises without seeing the plan forward.

I remember very recently we kept hearing our friends on the other side recite that we needed to take their word for it, as they repeatedly claimed that the carbon tax was not causing inflation. Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Budget Officer explained that the total cumulative effect of the carbon tax, even after the rebates, meant that most families were paying more. All the while, we kept saying, when we tax the farmer who grows the food, the trucker who transports it, the store that sells it and the family who buys it, prices will inevitably go up.

Then, as soon as the Liberal government finally heeded the Conservative plea to remove the carbon tax, Statistics Canada announced that the decrease in inflation was directly related to the removal of the carbon tax. The very next month, inflation went down from 2.3% to 1.7% in one month.

To wrap it up, the Liberals need to take a lesson from our common-sense advice. I invite them to consider the wisdom of our opposition motion. Canadians are depending on a plan that shows them the way forward.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since my arrival here at the start of the 45th Parliament, I have observed that all the Conservatives do is criticize. I have a question for the Conservatives. They are criticizing how the government is managing inflation, but instead of criticizing, could they finally propose some concrete measures for reducing the cost of living? Instead of criticizing, they should propose solutions. That is my suggestion.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that must be one of the first questions the member has asked in the House, so I welcome him to the House.

The member talked about criticizing. Our role, as opposition members, is to hold the government to account and to criticize the things that we see as being bad for Canada and bad for Canadians. We have offered concrete solutions. What we are offering today is a concrete solution of presenting a budget so that the House can analyze and scrutinize the government's plans to tell it where we think it needs to change course or improve its plans, or perhaps, as we did with the ways and means motion, give it the nod of approval and say keep going. I doubt it, but that may happen.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what we are hearing from the government benches is that negotiations are progressing and that there may even be direct negotiations going on between the Prime Minister and President Trump. However, in Canada, there is a total lack of transparency when it comes to trade negotiations. Agreements are negotiated behind closed doors. Parliament does not even get to vote on the substance, only on the implementation.

Although there are elements in the negotiation plans and the draft agreements that fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces, delegates appointed by Quebec and the provincial governments are not invited to participate.

I wonder whether my colleague can share his thoughts about that. Does he have an opinion about the Bloc Québécois's request that the Quebec government be allowed to appoint negotiators to sit at the table with the federal government? Currently, there is a complete lack of transparency in almost everything the government is doing, including on budgetary matters.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we used to hear in the House that sunshine was the best medicine. We do not hear that anymore, do we? No, what we are hearing now is, “I have a plan. Trust me.” There is no plan. The plan should be the budget. If we had a budget, we would know what we were doing.

When it comes to trade negotiations with the United States, we are kept in the dark instead of collaborating. The team Canada approach is what we heard so much about during the campaign. There is no team Canada. There is only “elbows up”, now get those elbows down and get back to work.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie South—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it has been 18 months since we had a budget. Just a couple of weeks ago, Parliament voted, with a majority, for the government to present a budget. We have seen, over the last 10 years, a decline in our democracy, which happened long before Donald Trump became President of the United States.

Would the hon. member not agree with me that this constitutes a contempt of Parliament in a way that we have seen a pattern of from the government?

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. The House was very clear last week. We were unanimous as opposition parties in saying that the government needed to present a budget. The behaviour and the actions of the current government and the current Prime Minister are absolutely a discredit to the House of Commons. They are operating in a way that is contrary to the will of Parliament. Parliament sent a clear message and gave the Prime Minister and the Liberal government an opportunity to work collaboratively with all the opposition party members in the House. They chose not to. They chose to take their own path of poor communication and a poor display of cohesiveness in the House.

The Americans see the way things are going, and I do not think that is going to bode well for the Prime Minister and his negotiations. What he needs to demonstrate is that he, at the very least, respects the will of Parliament and the wishes of opposition parties when they form a majority decision.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on the opposition motion, which calls for the government to table “a fiscally responsible budget before the House adjourns for the summer, that reverses [the] inflationary policies” of the past nine and a half years under the Liberal government.

Let us be clear about a few things. The government most assuredly is not a new government. There has not been a change of government; it is a continuation of the existing government. There is a new Prime Minister; that is true, but there is not a new government, nor is his presence new. The Prime Minister spent the last five years as an adviser to the last prime minister.

Anyone attending question period can see for themself that the front bench in the current Parliament is a lot like the front bench in the last Parliament. The new Minister of Transport is the former deputy prime minister and finance minister, as well as the former global affairs minister and trade minister. The new finance minister is the former industry minister, as well as the former global affairs minister and infrastructure minister. The new President of the King's Privy Council was the president of the King's privy council in the last government, and so on along the front benches.

Therefore the government is absolutely the same Liberal government that we have endured for the last nine and a half years. The same crew of ministers and advisers that has provided over nine and a half years of economic and fiscal vandalism is still in charge. In the timeless words of Pete Townshend and sung by Roger Daltrey:

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss.

The government, with a bunch of the same ministers, came into power in 2015. It inherited a balanced budget and what the New York Times in 2015 called Canada's middle class: the wealthiest middle class in the world. I know that the Liberals would appreciate that as a newspaper of record.

The Liberals were elected on a promise to run modest deficits to fund “unprecedented investments in infrastructure” that would lead to the budget's balancing itself in 2019. None of that happened. The Liberals immediately plunged Canada into structural deficits without building any of the productivity-enhancing infrastructure they had promised, and they presided over a decade of zero per capita economic growth.

Every single year, they piled on more and more debt while claiming to be bound by various fiscal metrics, always moving their own goal posts. Fiscal anchors and guardrails were declared and immediately discarded. Their 2015 election promise to balance the budget was completely forgotten. By early 2020, some $90 billion had already been added to the national debt before anybody had even heard of COVID-19. In early 2020, the country was on the brink of recession, and the Liberals were about to blow through all their budgetary projections and table a $60-billion deficit. What followed in the years since was that another $400 billion was added in deficit spending, the majority of which had nothing to do with pandemic relief.

Here we are today. After nine and a half years of uninterrupted inflationary spending, borrowing and money printing; after nine and a half years of the Liberal government's consistently exceeding every previously announced spending limit; and after nine and a half years of bloat, waste, insider dealing, sweetheart contracting, self-enrichment and smug, sanctimonious self-congratulations, we are in the midst of a full-blown affordability crisis of the government's own making and with no plan to get out.

Right now, millions of Canadians are thinking very seriously about how they are going to feed their family in the upcoming week. For some, that might mean substituting chicken for beef. For others, that may be going without fresh meat and substituting something they can find in the discounted “previously frozen” section. Many families will go without meat, fresh fruit or fresh vegetables, and are wondering how many boxes of mac and cheese it will take to get them through the week or how they are going to put nutritious meals together for their kids' lunches. Many Canadians are increasingly unable to pay for food at all and are turning to food banks, which have seen record use across Canada under the government.

Not helping things at all is a housing crisis, which has also emerged during the government's nine and a half years. Average rent and mortgage costs have more than doubled since the government was elected in 2015. That is why we are debating the motion. We are in a food inflation crisis long in the making. All the elements of the food inflation crisis, which is exacerbated by a housing affordability crisis, were here long before the trade war, but now there is even greater urgency. Last week's food inflation numbers are horrific: The cost of beef sirloin is up 34%, oranges are up 26%, white rice is up 14%, infant formula is up 9%, and the list goes on. Canadian families will spend an average of nearly $17,000 on groceries this year.

We know that taxes, government spending, deficits and printing money all contribute to inflation; the government has admitted as much. We also know that the government once again claimed suddenly, during the most recent election, that it will do something to rein in its out-of-control spending, and we know that many Canadians appear to have believed the Prime Minister when he claimed to be different from the last prime minister and the other ministers who surrounded him in the last Parliament and said he was going to control spending.

The Prime Minister brandished his resume and boasted about his experience as a crisis manager, so where is the plan to deal with the crisis and bring down inflation, reduce food prices, increase housing supply and increase the productivity of the Canadian economy so Canadians who work hard can regain their place as the world's wealthiest middle class? It is nowhere; there is no plan to be found, because the Prime Minister refuses to table one.

The Prime Minister tabled an estimates bill, which appears to double down on all the failed policies and strategies of the past nine and a half years, but the government will not table a budget. In the absence of a budget, all we can do is judge the government by the estimates it has tabled, and the judgment is a terrible indictment of the new Prime Minister and the tired old government.

The estimates show that the government is on track to be even worse than before. The estimates show an overall spending increase of 8% at a time when the Liberals promised to restore fiscal discipline. It is an 8% increase in spending without concrete solutions for any of Canada's major problems. It is not fiscal discipline; it is just bloat. The massive 34% increase in the use of third party consultants is proof of both a refusal to deal with out-of-control spending and a clearly broken campaign promise.

I know there are some people in the press gallery or elsewhere who will say and have said that, no, the estimates are not comparable to last year, we cannot compare the main estimates from last year to this year, we have to wait until the supplementary estimates are tabled later in the year, and these are just the mains and not the government's full spending plan for the year. They ask whether we know the difference between the estimates and a budget. To those people, I say, yes, we do know the difference. The estimates are the money that the government will actually be authorized to spend. They are not a budget. That is exactly the point: There is no budget.

The Liberals campaigned on the Prime Minister's being a safe pair of hands in a crisis and the “man with the plan”, and on just enough change that we might forget about how incompetent and unserious the previous government was for nine and a half years. Now it turns out that there is no plan at all, just a bunch of new spending that will have to be funded by taxes and borrowing, paid for by people who are literally struggling to put food on the table.

Parliament was adjourned, prorogued and then dissolved, since mid-December, so for nearly six months, Parliament sat idle. The last sort of mini budget was delivered by nobody. There was literally no name on the fall economic statement. No minister was attached to it during Justin Trudeau's last-ditch attempt to remain in power.

Six months later, Canadians are entitled to a detailed plan and at least some degree of honesty and transparency about how the government will tax, spend and borrow; how much the deficit will be; and whether there is any plan, even another phony plan, to eventually balance the budget. This is the absolute minimum owed by the government to Canadians. It was demanded by the people represented in the House last week, so let me add my voice to those calling on the government to table a budget before the summer. Canadians will not get fooled again.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I agree on one thing: that Canadians want a detailed plan. Canadians want us to really take our time to come up with a budget that is thoughtful and that responds to exactly what they sent us to the House to do, which was to make sure we can deliver on things like affordability. We have the plans to do that, and that is why we came back into government.

Can the member opposite confirm that he is going to support some of the bills that Canadians sent us to do in the House, like Bill C-5, which would remove the borders to make sure that we have one Canadian economy that works for all provinces?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is so typical of what we saw throughout the entire last Parliament. A government that prorogued the House, dissolved Parliament and forced Parliament to sit idle for six months now demands to know whether we can we drop everything and just rubber-stamp its legislation. The member seems to suggest that the Liberals can ignore Parliament for months at a time, and that then somehow it is the opposition's fault if their agenda is not immediately adopted. Where was the government from December 2024 on, when a budget could have been tabled and Canada's urgent problems could have been addressed?

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a comment, which my colleague can share his thoughts on afterward.

Does my colleague not find it contradictory, or at the very least curious, that our banker Prime Minister called in King Charles to distinguish himself from the U.S. but that the first thing he did was sign a Trump-style order, implying that he did not need the House for it to be implemented?

At the same time, the House adopted a motion telling him that we want a budget or, at the very least, a serious economic statement. Is this Prime Minister not just another monarch, flouting parliamentary democracy?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises a great point. It was a disturbing and chilling bit of political theatre when we watched the Prime Minister sit down as if we were in a presidential system, and sign some paper. I do not even know what was on that piece of paper, but he felt that he had the power to usurp what is normally the prerogative of the House. Maybe it was just his ignorance of parliamentary process and our system, and his comms people thought it would look funny. I do not know, but it was not good.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, BC]

Mr. Speaker, you are doing a great job up there in the new role, recognizing all the names. There were so many changes in the last election, such as my riding's name change. I really appreciate the knowledge.

I would like to ask my colleague whether he has ever experienced any level of government or large organization, be it nonprofit or for-profit, that has ever gone this length of time without presenting a budget that could be evaluated by anybody who might be opposed.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, no, I have not.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie South—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to not having a budget, there have been rumours that the Liberals may separate operational and capital budgets so that we do not get a full reading of the state of finances in this country as they relate to revenue, debt and deficit. Does the member think that is a possibility with the government?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the government has certainly signalled that it would like to do that, which is using accounting trickery to deceive Canadians about the true nature of the deficit. This has been tried at the provincial level. It does not work. It is a mistake if the government wants to go that route.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Ponoka—Didsbury.

I will warn the member now that he will have to be interrupted at 6.15 p.m.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was hoping to split my time with the member for Barrie South—Innisfil, but you just told me that it is probably not going to happen. I am not going to get into some procedural wrangling with you about the close of the day.

I want to thank my colleagues in the Conservative caucus for using this opposition day to highlight a very serious matter about just how incompetent this start is for the new Prime Minister and the so-called new Liberal government.

However, because this is my first time on my feet in a speech scenario in this Parliament, I want to first of all express thanks and appreciation to everybody back home. As members may know, there was a redistribution in the last election. Ponoka—Didsbury is a new political entity. It did not exist in the previous three sessions. I was proudly the member of Parliament for the folks of Red Deer—Lacombe. I just want to say, to anybody back in Red Deer who is watching today, that I thank them so much for those three elections where they sent me to Ottawa to work on their behalf. I certainly enjoyed getting to know so many of them and working so hard on their behalf. I appreciate the good wishes and sentiments that many of them have sent to me in my new role.

Of course, there are the four bands at Maskwacis, whom I have actually represented since 2006 when the riding used to be called Wetaskiwin. I will certainly miss the conversations I have had up there with them. I am sure I will always be available if anybody there wants to have a chat with me. I am happy to continue to advocate for all people of Alberta, not just the people I represent or once represented. However, I want to thank them for the kindness they have shown me, the patience they have shown me and the goodwill they have extended to me for almost 20 years as the member of Parliament who represented that particular area.

When we lose about 50,000 people through redistribution, we have to gain another 40,000 or so back. With the good people in Mountain View County and in Red Deer County, we are just getting to know each other a bit through this election. To the people in Innisfail, Bowden, Olds, Didsbury and Benalto, I am very much looking forward to working very hard on their behalf and getting to know them all well. I am going to have to buy an economical vehicle. The riding has gone back up to a whopping 35,000-plus square kilometres, but they sent me here with a great endorsement. I want them to know, the over 56,000 of them who put an X beside my name, that it is not lost on me. The only promise I ever make during a campaign is that I will do my best on people's behalf, and they have that commitment from me.

I also want to thank all of the volunteers who came out and helped on the campaign. There are too many to name them all, but I just want to thank particularly Angie, Alyn, and Al; they were great. Larry, Ross, Abigail and Onsy were invaluable to me, and numerous other people came out and knocked on doors, put up signs and helped with the campaign. I thank them so much.

Last, to my family, this is my seventh term in the House of Commons, and I would not have been able to do any of the things that I am able to do here on behalf of the good people of central Alberta over the last seven elections and 19-plus years, if I did not have the support and blessing of my family: my wife, Barbara; my children; my parents, Gord and Bev; my brother Tim; my sister Wendy; and everybody who has supported me. When we run for office, we can give as much time to this endeavour as we want. It is hard to maintain friendships and family relationships sometimes, but they have stuck with me. For that, I am eternally grateful.

Here we are, talking about the opposition day motion. Quite succinctly, to those who are watching back home, what are we talking about today? The House actually just voted very recently, last week, asking that the government reverse course on its decision to blow off the Canadian people and not table or present a fiscal budget this spring.

Mr. Speaker, I have been here for a long time, almost as long as you. We have had offices and have been acquaintances for quite some time. I do not remember ever not having a budget in the spring. Everybody else has a budget. The provinces and territories have budgets. Our cities, towns and counties have budgets. The Lions Club has a budget, for heaven's sake, but not the Government of Canada. For some reason, we cannot seem to get that done.

The man with the plan is seemingly turning out to be a man with a scam in mind, if people ask me. What could possibly be the reason the government would not table a budget? Is it because it is in a minority? That does not make any sense, because, like I said, the Speaker and I have been here for the last seven Parliaments. The Speaker might have actually come in 2004, in which case I have been here for seven Parliaments and the Speaker has been here for eight. Only two of those Parliaments were majority Parliaments. The other five, in my case, and six, in the Speaker's, have been minorities, yet every minority government up until this point in time has had no trouble tabling a budget.

As a matter of fact, in 2005 the Speaker was here when Paul Martin, the prime minister at the time, and Jack Layton were able to draft up a budget on the back of a napkin. It was not a problem at all. Does everybody remember the napkin budget? They were able to do that in a minority Parliament and bring forward these ideas in a budget in 2005 to Canadians. For some reason, the current government does not seem to be able to do that, so it obviously has something else in mind.

Is it because the government does not have any experience? Is this Parliament so new that the government does not have any experience? That cannot be the case, because the current finance minister was a member of cabinet the entire time the Justin Trudeau government was in office. He is a very experienced parliamentarian.

As a matter of fact, the previous finance minister is only a couple of desks down. Anybody could ask the previous finance minister, who, if people remember, so ceremoniously presented the fall economic statement last year. We would think that just the Liberal budgets would cause chaos, but no, we actually had a situation in Parliament where I think the government was in contempt of Parliament for not tabling the fall economic statement, if I remember correctly. That was the debate at the time.

The government had asked for the House resources for that entire day, so proud of its fall economic statement, and then of course we remember how that turned out. As a matter of fact, it is actually such that, I think, if I have the stats correct, 80% of the spending in the current ways and means motion is under the care and control of people who have been in cabinet before, so it cannot be a lack of experience.

Is it because the government has a scam? I think it is. I think it is going to cook the books on operational versus capital. We are going to see this in the fall.

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It being 6:15 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the business of supply.

The question is as follows. Shall I dispense?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

[Chair read text of motion to House]

If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.