Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
2020-09-24 17:18 [p.91]

Mr. Speaker, to my hon. colleague and friend from Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, let me add my congratulations on his recent ascension within his party ranks.

I will pick up on something the member for Carleton said, which the member referenced in his speech. He was using statistics of deficit to GDP ratio. It is certainly much more common to use statistics, as I am sure the member will agree, of debt to GDP ratio, deficits being more temporary. As the parliamentary budget office has reported, when we look at World War II figures, the economy recovered quite quickly.

Let us look at debt to GDP ratio. We went into this pandemic at about 30% debt to GDP ratio, much better than any other country in the G7. It is predicted that we will be at about 38% by the end of this. In 1995, we had 66% debt to GDP ratio.

I do not want to scare Canadians into a kind of sticker shock, thinking that our kids are going to pay for this. That is not true. I think we need to actually look at the world. All the major economies in the world have their central banks doing the same thing.
I am going to stop there and ask my hon. colleague for a comment on whether we could reference history more precisely so as not to alarm people.

Jamie Schmale (Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock)
2020-09-24 17:19 [p.92]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to see my friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands. I have a couple of things to say.

The current government has no plan to bring the books to balance. It has spending in perpetuity. It is going to go on forever. This is what happens when money continues to be printed, as the Bank of Canada has done in many cases, and the debt continues to be racked up, then the currency or the economy will be debauched, and probably both at the same time. If investors lose confidence and stop buying our debt, inflation will start to rise, and the Canadian dollar will drop. The Bank of Canada would then be forced to increase interest rates, and access to credit would shrink.

That is why Conservatives talk about balancing the budget, reigning in spending, controlling the costs of bureaucracy, and allowing services to be given to the people at a reasonable cost at the most effective measure. The most effective measure is allowing people more choice in their lives with more money in their pockets, and not funnelling their money to government, allowing it to go around in a cotton candy machine, going to the provinces, municipalities and to the end user, which is the taxpayer.

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This Bill will require the Government of Canada, through the offices of the Chief Statistician and Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, to develop a set of indicators to measure the real health and well-being of people, communities and ecosystems in Canada, to be made accessible to Canadians and reviewed regularly by the Environment Committee.

“While not costing Canadian taxpayers a dime, this Bill will borrow the best practices from groups that are already doing great work in this area, and incorporate considerations such as impacts on literacy rates, income inequality, and the health of our environment into decisions made by the Government of Canada”, explained May. 

Although Canada is struggling to play catch-up, initiatives similar to this are gaining momentum and beginning to influence the decisions made by politicians and business leaders around the world. Prominent recent examples include the OECD’s Better Life Index, the United Nations Gross National Happiness Index, and our own Canadian Index of Wellbeing, headed by Roy Romanow and housed at the University of Waterloo.

“At its core, Bill C-436 represents an understanding that the economy and the environment are inextricably linked. While the Harper Conservatives cling to outdated notions of progress, pushing pipelines and oil tankers at the expense of our clean air and water, we need better tools to understand why such a narrow-minded and short-term focus on GDP will ultimately cost Canadians much more over the long term.”

As she introduced the Bill in the House of Commons today, Elizabeth May quoted the late US Senator Robert Kennedy at length:

“Too much and too long we seem to have surrendered community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising and ambulance to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead and armoured cars and police who fight riots in our streets. It counts the knife and the rifle and television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet, the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry, the intelligence of our public debate, the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning. It measures everything in short except that which makes life worthwhile.”

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