Talk is cheap in Liberal budget bill. Nothing else is cheap.

I spoke about Bill C-47, Budget Implementation Act, 2023, No 1. This is an omnibus bill that includes a lot of disconnected policy changes, but what shines through is that the Liberals have made a lot of promises in their almost-8 years which haven’t held up. For example:

• A short term deficit of no more than $10 billion with a balanced budget by 2019, promised in 2015.
• A rock solid Debt to GDP ratio that won’t increase. Wrong. It is increasing.
• Public debt charges that will remain at historically low levels. Wrong. They have gone from $24 B to $44 B in two years and are the highest proportion of GDP in 15 years.
• The carbon tax will never rise above $50. We know that’s a broken promise.
• “We are not worried about inflation; we are worried about deflation”. That one sure didn’t stand the test of time.
• Subsidies to multi-national corporations they call “leverage”, but which actually exceed the amount the companies are themselves investing.

Deficits do not solve themselves. Inflation requires a strategy to control. Debt to GDP ratio is a metric the government has largely made up, picking and choosing which numbers to use, and they still can’t make it add up.

This budget is about tax, spend, and divide. This is no way to manage a country’s finances. Conservatives will use legislative strategies to block this bill until the Liberals come up with a plan to realistically tackle the deficit, and ease the inflationary burden on Canadians by ending carbon tax increases.

References

Refer to the official Hansard transcript.

Bill C-47, Budget Implementation Act, 2023, No. 1