Why your paycheque isn't enough anymore | The harsh reality of Canada’s shrinking economy

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Honorable member for Edmonton West.

[00:00:01]>> Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm very pleased to rise today on our motion. Now, Food Bank Canada had a stark warning and a stark quote from the most recent report, and I quote, "Something fundamental has shifted in Canada." They go on further to say, "A job in Canada is no longer enough to ensure a reliable pathway to security. One in four Canadians are facing food insecurity.

[00:00:28]20% of those of the 2.2 million lining up every month at food banks are employed. I'm going to read that line again from the report. In Canada, a job is no longer enough to ensure a reliable pathway to security. That is what over a decade of this Liberal government has inflicted upon Canada. Something has fundamentally changed in this country and it's fundamentally changed for the worse because of this country in or because of this uh government. In Edmonton alone, we have two separate food banks just serving veterans. Those who have served our country in the military, but also RCMP have two separate food banks to serve them just for them to get by. At the same time, we have the prime minister spending close to $200,000 for gourmet meals on his jet just for three trips, while the Liberals are spending $200 million for Liberal insiders for a concrete pad, cement pad in Nova Scotia.

[00:01:36]Now, Canada has entered recession territory. The Liberals will quibble and say, "Well, it's only technical recession. It really doesn't count." But the economy is shrinking and not just the last two quarters, three of the last four quarters. We are the only G7 country with a shrinking economy. In fact, even basket cases like France and Italy do not have shrinking economies.

[00:02:07]We are in fact the only economy that has shrunk in the last four quarters in the G7. No one else, not the US, not Germany, which continues on its path to net zero economic suicide, not Italy without all the oil resources that we have, just us.

[00:02:33]Again, you think of the old world, the G7, all the issues that they were having with the Ukraine war about being cut off from their natural gas resources. And yet, somehow they've avoided a recession like us.

[00:02:50]Now, this GDP issue reflects our stagnating standard living and anemic anemic productivity growth and highlights our weakness in business investments investments. According to the Fraser Institute in plants, machinery or sorry plants, machinery, equipment and IP has fallen 20% as a share of the economy in the last 10 years. So I wonder what happened 10 years ago that would cause us to be on such a decline.

[00:03:19]Further, the last four years has seen this decline accelerate, matching about four years ago when the current prime minister started helping this government as a special economic adviser.

[00:03:34]What a coincidence. I know more sobering news is from the Bank of Canada monetary policy report. Now the one the member from Winnipeg North just previously was saying we believe in the Bank of Canada.

[00:03:50]Bank of Canada has all the information.

[00:03:51]Don't you believe in the Bank of Canada?

[00:03:53]Well, I believe in the Bank of Canada monetary policy report that actually shows this government is misleading Canadians on growth. Bank of Canada is predicting next year a 16% lower GDP growth than the government just did in their spring budget. The year after that they're predicting a 13% lower growth. So ask the member from Winnipeg North who does he believe? Does he believe the Bank of Canada like he just stated he believes or does he not now when it's not convenient for him?

[00:04:30]So even the Bank of Canada doesn't believe the government when they say they're the fastest growing economy in the G7. We're not.

[00:04:40]Further from the Bank of Canada, even more sobering, for 2026 of the anemic growth that we have under this Liberal government, Bank of Canada is saying 75% of that growth is from added government spending, not from exporting oil, perhaps not from IP or investment, from government spending. 2027 44% of the growth of the forecast is government spending.

[00:05:13]The year after 25% of all the growth that the Bank of Canada is seeing in GDP is coming from government spending.

[00:05:24]This is not a way to grow out of the troubles we're in by just simply borrowing more money, spending more money. I think over the next five years we're going to have almost $400 billion just in interest payments. And what are we getting for it? We're not getting growth like we see in the other countries. We are seeing a shrinking economy.

[00:05:50]So what do we do about this? Well, apart from joining uh Marty McFly and um Doc Brown and getting into a uh car and go a Delorean, go back to the future to 2015 and ensure that Trudeau doesn't get elected. We can change the policies now. We can start undoing the liberal policies that are wrecking the economy. The Chamber of Commerce just recently in a submission to the finance committee says the government needs to focus on competitiveness.

[00:06:22]They say we can't compete globally because of a regulatory and red tape regime that is seen as cumbersome and anti-investment.

[00:06:33]We have well over 300,000 different rules and regulations over 450 different acts with thousands time per act adding regulations that are tying up and slowing our economic growth. So what does the government do? Well, normal government around the world would perhaps say, well, let's reduce red tape.

[00:06:58]Let's cut some of the red tape. This government instead, we know defense procurement's a mess. So instead of actually addressing it, they create another procurement, another agency bureaucracy to work around their own rules that they've created. For major projects, same thing. Let's add more bureaucracy to work around the other bureaucracy we created.

[00:07:21]Further, they created another bureaucracy for red tape reduction.

[00:07:27]34 full-time equivalents that they've added to the bureaucracy to cut red tape.

[00:07:34]We submitted an order paper question asking what they managed to cut for regulations.

[00:07:42]Well, we ended up for 35 full-time employees, 29 regulations repealed.

[00:07:50]Here's some of them. Well, they repealed regulations on UN regulations regarding Sierra Aloney. Wow, that's going to grow the economy. They cut regulations on courted window covering products.

[00:08:05]They cut regulations regarding board elections for the wheat board years after the wheat board went away. This is what 34 full-time employees managed to do over a couple year period to cut red tape.

[00:08:22]They changed regulations on the wheat board elections for the board of directors for a wheat board that doesn't exist anymore.

[00:08:31]So, how are we going to grow the economy if this is the best the government can do? Well, we could get our energy markets to product or to um to market.

[00:08:44]We could build pipelines. We could get rid of the oil and gas emissions cap.

[00:08:48]The government will say, "Oh, wow. We don't have that anymore." But they haven't equivalently come out and said that cap is dead. They could get rid of the anti-alberta tanker ban C48. We have a private members bill before this house right now to eliminate the oil and gas or the tanker ban. Liberals are opposing it. Perfectly fine to have Saudi Arabia oil come up the St. Lawrence, but you can't have Alberta oil off the North BC coast. We could get rid of the costly industrial carbon tax and the unconstitutional no new pipeline bill C69. If we want Northern Gateway to get built that is going to add billions and billions, tens of billions of dollars of added growth to the economy, this government needs to get out of the way.

[00:09:33]It needs to kill C48, the antera tanker tanker ban. We need to kill C69. We need to get rid of the oil and gas emissions cap. We need to get rid of this government's determination to wreck our economy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

[00:09:50]>> Questions and comments. Kes here the honorable parliamentary secretary government house leader.

[00:09:54]>> So thank you Mr. Speaker you know I would note in terms of it's just been over one year when Canadians went to the polls and they elected a new government.

[00:10:01]What some of the actions that we have seen in that one year tangible actions such as the international exports have gone beyond uh the United States significantly increased. Mr. Speaker, we can talk about rents that have been going down. We can talk about the average household net worth which has actually improved. We can talk about Canada's AAA uh credit uh rating and that fact that we have the best financial position of the G7 countries and yet we still provide the type of programs to deal with the issue of affordability things like the grocery and essentials uh rebate such as providing assurances in regards to other social programs like our child care uh uh programs. My question to the member is, would he not agree that that is a very much a holistic approach at building a stronger and healthier economy?

[00:10:47]>> The honorable member for Edmonton West.

[00:10:50]>> Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to thank my uh colleague from Winnipeg North for uh fiction hour in the House of Commons. What has this government delivered in over 10 years? It's not a new government. It's the same old tired Liberal government. What have they delivered?

[00:11:05]Rising unemployment, record debt, record deficit.

[00:11:10]record people, Canadians, at food banks.

[00:11:13]They've delivered an economy that requires us to have two food banks just to serve veterans in Edmonton. That is what this Liberal government, this 10-year-old tired, corrupt Liberal government has delivered for Canadians.

[00:11:26]>> Questions and comments.

[00:11:29]>> The honorable member for La Point.

[00:11:33]Well, I'd like to thank my former seat neighbor in this house.

[00:11:42]This economic update does not take into account President Trump's new 25% tariffs on all aluminum and steel derived products. This will particularly affect Quebec. 25% of Quebecme exports to the US will be affected.

[00:12:02]Does my colleague think that we should take measures to support those businesses?

[00:12:09]>> We are proposing a wage subsidy in order to keep a relationship between businesses and employees. What does my colleague think?

[00:12:17]>> West.

[00:12:18]>> Thank my colleague for his question.

[00:12:20]Brought up a lot of great points. The prime minister twice promised to get a deal done by last summer. Twice he hasn't delivered. The best thing we can do for my colleagues from Quebec and their me and their constituents is to deliver a deal. The government has failed to do so despite repeated promises by the prime minister.

[00:12:40]>> Member for Swift current grasslands Kindersley.

[00:12:41]>> Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. You know, the the Liberals keep saying that, you know, there's so much growth, so much growth in Canada. So, let's take a look at the growth that I'm seeing. I'm seeing growth in inflation up half a percent in April. Growth in unemployment up in April. Food bank usage up massively. What we're also seeing, uh, Mr. Speaker, is business capital investment, though it fell 0.7% in the first quarter of 2026, which was the fifth consecutive quarter that business capital investment in Canada dropped.

[00:13:10]Wondering how my colleague thinks about that and if he has any ideas how to get this government uh, back in line.

[00:13:16]>> Member for Edmonton West.

[00:13:18]>> Thanks for the question. Uh, to my colleague, as I mentioned earlier, the Chamber of Commerce of Canada in a submission to finance committee laid it out. They stated, "The current environment imposed on businesses by this government makes investment unwelcoming.

[00:13:35]Canada needs to change. We need tax reform and we need regulatory reform."

[00:13:41]As the Chamber of Commerce has stated, we need to fix our regulatory regime. We need tax reform. We need this government to stop standing here and pretending that all these announcements are serving Canadians. They actually need to take action.

[00:13:54]>> That's right. Time for a brief question.

[00:13:56]The honorable member for Niagara West.

[00:13:58]>> Uh thank you very much. Uh Mr. Speaker, I could ask the same question. At the end of the day, if you're not investing back in your businesses, how are you going to grow the economy? I'd like to ask the speaker uh the speaker again.

[00:14:11]After five quarters of negative growth in business investment, how exactly are we going to grow our economy?

[00:14:17]>> Good question.

[00:14:18]>> The honorable member for Edmonton West about 35 seconds.

[00:14:21]>> Makes a great point. The Canadian economy is shrinking. Mexico, which has a far greater reliance on the US trade than Canada does, their economy is not shrinking. In fact, their auto industry exports to the US are double what they are in Canada. And yet, somehow they're managing to grow their economy with the same issues we have. What they don't have that's holding them back is a Liberal government.