Ottawa, ON – After eight months as Prime Minister and 570 days since the last budget, Mark Carney’s Finance Minister finally presented the most expensive and costly budget ever (outside of COVID).
Despite promising that he would spend less and that his budget would “ensure that government debt-to-GDP declines,” Carney is doubling the debt of his predecessor. This new spending will only drive up the cost of food, homes and everything else that Canadians buy.
That’s as Statistics Canada updated their average retail prices for food, showing the cost of groceries continues to surge higher. With more and more people being pushed to food banks, Conservatives presented an amendment to bring in an affordable budget so Canadians could have affordable lives, but the Liberals voted it down.
Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings, one of the Big 3 credit rating agencies, issued a stark warning about the threat Liberal deficits pose. They noted the budget “underscores the erosion of the federal government’s finances,” and the total government deficit is now over eight times higher than the pre-pandemic average.
They weren’t the only ones highlighting the budget’s broken promises. The housing industry issued scathing reports showing that the Liberals have given up on solving the housing crisis. BILD noted, “what was once a promise to deliver 500,000 new homes annually has now become a plan that will cost 100,000 jobs.”
That’s after the Liberals abandoned their promise to tackle development charges that the Canadian Homebuilders Association says have “soared by 700 per cent” over the last two decades. Meanwhile, their GST rebate only applies to “a very small fraction of the market” and will “continue to erode affordability for Canadians in large urban centres.”
Also this week, Conservative MP Kelly Block introduced Private Members’ Bill C-255 to increase penalties for criminals convicted of mischief directed at places of worship. The bill was in response to the over 300 percent increase in such incidents over the last decade.
Conservatives continued fighting to protect kids by calling to use the notwithstanding clause to reintroduce mandatory minimums for child sexual abuse material offences and keep child predators in jail. Shamefully, the Liberals confirmed they won’t reverse the court’s disgusting decision that let those with hundreds of images and videos of children as young as three being sexually abused out early.
Capping off the week, Pierre Poilievre delivered an economic keynote speech to the Economic Club of Canada, responding to the federal budget. He reiterated Conservative calls for a budget that delivers homes, jobs and hope for our young people and affordable lives for everyone.
As Mark Carney continues to abandon the promises he made to Canadians, Conservatives continue to fight for the promise of Canada: where every Canadian can buy affordable food and homes with stronger take-home pay in the richest country on earth.