Ottawa, ON – The Hon. Michael Chong, Conservative Shadow Minister for Finance, released the following statement on Mr. Carney’s lack of fiscal transparency:
“Prime Minister Carney has announced about $100 billion of new spending in recent weeks, including at least $30 billion annually for defence by 2030, up to $43.7 billion for a new oil pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast, and up to about $20 billion for new infrastructure projects in British Columbia without telling Canadians where the money to pay for all of this will come from.
“As Mr. Carney attends the NATO summit this week, he will no doubt be touting his defence spending increases. But Canadians have been left in the dark about exactly how the Liberals will hit their spending targets and how they’re going to pay for it.
“According to Mr. Carney, Canada will hit the four per cent spending target by the end of the decade and is already spending 1.5 per cent of GDP on defence infrastructure. However, when asked to provide details on how the money is being spent or how Canada is going to hit its target, Minister Champagne’s office refused to provide details.
“The Parliamentary Budget Officer has also tried to get information from the Liberal Ministers of National Defence and Finance on their defence spending targets. Of the three separate requests sent, the Liberals failed to provide the requested information to one and have yet to respond to the other two.
“According to Don Drummond, a former Associate Deputy Finance Minister with 49 years of experience as an economist, he has ‘never seen a case of less transparency over a budget thing. And it seems to be pretty simple, just show us the number.’
“Defence spending is not the only area where the Liberals have been less than fully transparent. At a press conference in British Columbia, Carney announced almost $20 billion in new federal funding to the province for various projects. Yet Mr. Carney hasn’t revealed how much they will be spending each year, nor how the new spending will impact the debt and deficit, or if the funding will be direct spending or loans.
“This lack of transparency was repeated during Mr. Carney’s announcement of the pipeline proposal. While the federally-owned Trans Mountain is the lead proponent of the project, Mr. Carney didn’t reveal how much he expects to spend to build the pipeline or how much it will cost taxpayers.
“Each of these spending announcements raise questions that Mr. Carney must provide answers to: How much will taxes have to go up to pay for this? How much will social programs have to be cut? How much will increased interest payments on the national debt burden our children?
“Canadians deserve to know exactly how much money the Liberals are spending and exactly how this is going to be paid for. The lack of transparency on the part of Mr. Carney is unacceptable, particularly in light of the amounts of money involved. Conservatives will continue to demand details on this $100 billion in spending, to ensure that Mr. Carney does not put at risk a Canada that is affordable, safe and self-reliant.”