Poilievre says Canadians have to sacrifice because of the Liberals
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has rebuked the Liberals’ claim that sacrifices are going to be required by Canadians with the upcoming federal budget.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has rebuked the Liberals’ claim that sacrifices are going to be required by Canadians with the upcoming federal budget, arguing that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s deficit is what’s “causing the sacrifices.
”During an interview with CBC News’ Rosemary Barton on Sunday, Poilievre called Carney’s framing a “false juxtaposition.”
“The deficit is causing the sacrifices,” said Poilievre. “The more the government spends, the more things cost. The cost of government is driving up the cost of living. These deficits are raising the prices that people pay in real time. It’s called inflation, and we know that the source of inflation is when the government prints money to spend what it does not have.”
The Conservative leader went on to say that it was “no coincidence” that as the Liberals doubled the national debt, food bank lineups and housing costs across Canada drastically increased as well. Barton noted how Carney’s new budget has proposed to up spending to alleviate housing costs to mitigate the crisis faced by Canadians.
“That is what they are proposing to do to help Canadians in this moment,” said Barton.
Poilievre responded by saying that every dollar the government spends “comes from Canadians.”
“Remember, Justin Trudeau and the previous Liberal government launched a bunch of expensive housing programs, saying ‘it would help.’ It doubled housing costs. They announced food programs, well, they doubled food bank line ups. So, the more the government spends, the more it drives up the cost of living. We can’t have a costly budget that makes life more costly for the Canadian people.”
Poilievre asked that the Liberals uphold their promise from last year of maintaining a deficit of $41 billion, adding that Carney was elected on a campaign pledge to spend less than the party did under Trudeau.
“Since that time, his deficit spending is 100 per cent more,” he said. Defending Carney’s position, Barton said that his rationale for the increased spending is designed to “spur investment in the Canadian economy, things like defence, housing” and sectors that have been impacted by U.S. tariffs.
“He believes that that investment will actually attract private capital and force the economy to sort of rebuild in the face of Donald Trump,” said Barton.
However, Poilievre called that a “familiar line,” saying it was the exact same promise the Trudeau-Liberals made in 2015.
“Ten years ago, when they ran on producing small, small, temporary deficits that would invest and what happened? They doubled the national debt, and what happened to investment? It dropped, more than any time in Canadian history, and more than any other G7 country,” said Poilievre.
“Deficits are not investments, they reduce investments because they borrow money out of the economy that would have otherwise been invested in productive private enterprises, factories, mines, pipelines, LNG plants. So, when the government borrows, it actually subtracts out of the economy by sucking up capital that would have been used for productive purposes.”
Poilievre said that the only thing the government really needs to do is “get out of the way.”
“There are trillions of dollars of private investment ready to dig mines, build pipelines, set up LNG plants, build ports. We know that that money exists because they’re doing it in other countries around the world where there are fast approvals, less red tape and lower taxes.”
When asked why, as a conservative, Poilievre would even be willing to accept at $42 billion dollar deficit, he responded by saying “because that’s the disastrous state we’re in.”“
Maybe if he’d introduced the budget at the beginning of the fiscal year, like most normal, competent prime ministers would have done, and all prime ministers used to do. We could have affected the deficit. But Rosey, but half to two-thirds of the fiscal year is behind us. The money’s already been spent,” he said.
“I would like a zero-deficit, but the Liberals have put us in this mess and I have to work with what I got.”
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