‘Own up to the recession you created’ | Poilievre takes aim at PM Carney for technical recession

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]France is facing tariffs and global economic uncertainty.

[00:00:08]France is not in a recession.

[00:00:11]The United Kingdom is facing tariffs and the global energy price increase, and the United Kingdom is not in recession.

[00:00:20]Germany and Italy are facing global economic effects and tariffs.

[00:00:24]They're not in recession. Japan is facing tariffs and the global economic economy. Japan is not in recession. The United States is obviously facing tariffs and global economic factors like high energy prices, and the United States is not in recession. So, why is it that only Canada after a year of Mark Carney is in a recession today?

[00:00:50]Well, you could ask him that question, but he won't take any of your questions.

[00:00:55]He's hiding from you.

[00:00:57]It was Friday morning that we learned that Canada's economy was the only one in a recession, the only G7 economy.

[00:01:06]And what has Mark Carney done since?

[00:01:08]He's been in hiding. Oh, yes, he let you in for 30 seconds to have a little picture of him with the Chinese foreign minister. Then he hid for the rest of the weekend. Today, he's going to let you show up and take a picture of him wearing a hard hat and carrying a hammer around pretending he's a carpenter, but he won't have time to take questions on how he created the only recession in the G7.

[00:01:31]Question period, where normally prime ministers go to answer, especially in a moment of crisis, when the economy has fallen into the only recession in the G7, you would expect him to be there to be accountable, to show his incredible economic brilliance, but he's not showing up for question period, either.

[00:01:47]While Canadians are starving, losing their jobs, and missing mortgage payments, and Mark Carney has created the only G7 economy in a recession, he is hiding from accountability. Now, liberals are saying it's only a technicality. Sure, it meets the back-to-back declining GDP quarter after quarter definition that you find in any textbook, but that's just an economic fluke. Look at the other data. So, let's do that.

[00:02:15]Let's start with jobs. In the first 3 months of this year alone, under Mark Carney, Canada's lost 112,000 jobs. There are 45,000 more unemployed Canadians than there were when Mark Carney became Prime Minister. We have the second highest unemployment in the G7, a third higher than in the US. Let's move from from there to business investment. Remember all the investment Mark Carney was going to bring us? For five consecutive quarters, investment has declined in Canada. There's $20 billion in net investment that has left since he took office.

[00:02:48]In fact, there's been um it when it comes to investment, we have the worst investment per capita of any country in the G7 under his leadership. And by the way, that stacks on top of the trillion dollars of net investment that had already left in the prior 10 years of the Liberal government. And that investment then flows into people's ability to pay their bills. So, let's look at that. Equifax put out a data last week showing that insolvency rates rates have now reached their highest level since 2009, up 19% year-over-year under Carney. 1.5 million Canadians missed a minimum debt payment in the first 3 months of this year. Mortgage delinquency rates are up a third in 1 year, and Canada under Carney has the worst household debt of any country in the G7. Just today, the um Food Banks Canada report came out showing, and I'm quoting, "Something fundamental has shifted in Canada. One quarter of people are food insecure.

[00:03:44]That's one in four people who struggle to access the food they need to be at at their best." This this sharp rise in food insecurity is not a surprise to the food bank network which has seen demand increase year-over-year with visits doubling across Canada since 2020. A country cannot be strong and resilient when so many people are struggling to pay their essentials. Too many people have incomes that do not meet the cost of living. For one thing, a job is no longer enough to ensure a reliable pathway to stability.

[00:04:16]Keeping up with food rising food costs has become more difficult even for those who are employed who now make up one in five food bank clients.

[00:04:27]Four in 10 Canadians are now spending more than 30% of their income on housing and that number is the threshold to determine that they cannot afford the homes in which [music] they live. The share of people reaching uh reporting difficulty in accessing care rose steadily from 19% in 2023 to 24% in 2026.

[00:04:51]So, Mr. Carney says we're not in a real recession. He has he sent out his liberal commentators and economists to say it's just a technicality. Mr. Carney, I have a question for you and I hope that you'll have the courage to actually look Canadians in the eyes today and be accountable for your recession.

[00:05:09]Uh the single mother who has to turn back items at the grocery checkout because she can't afford to pay for them. Are you going to tell her that her hunger is just a technicality?

[00:05:20]Are you going to say to the man who goes home to his kids in Windsor tonight to say that he's lost his job and they're going to have to sell the home that's only technical? Are you going to tell that young couple that work every day but still can't move out of that 400 square foot apartment that their inability to own a home is just technical? Or you going to own up for the recession that you created and get into the House of Commons and do your job to to the liberal policies that have made us the only economy with a recession in the G7. We as conservatives are here to work. We have a plan to reverse the liberal recession. Get rid of the anti-development laws. Cut the red tape to unlock our businesses so that they can grow higher and pay more wages.

[00:06:03]Cut the bureaucracy, the consultants, the foreign aid, the handouts to phony refugees, the corporate welfare to liberal insiders. Close the tax loopholes that Mark Carney uses to avoid paying his taxes so that we can reduce them for everyone.

[00:06:17]Use that money to bring down inflationary deficits, taxes. Let's cut taxes on work, investment, savings, uh home building, and energy so that we can unlock our economy and be the fastest growing in the G7.

[00:06:31]That is how we're going to give make Canada affordable at home, secure at home, and strong at home. Thank you.