As Canada’s deficit approaches $50 billion, heated exchanges in the House of Commons have turned to language and accountability. Conservative MP Corey Tochor (Saskatoon-University) drew a formal complaint for calling the government’s spending “pissing away taxpayers’ money.”“That’s the Liberal scandal,” said Tochor during the debate. “They find more ways of pissing away taxpayers’ money at every chance they get.”Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North), parliamentary secretary to the Government House Leader, objected to the language. “I don’t know, and I just say it because I think it should be reviewed, if that’s an appropriate thing to be saying as parliamentary words,” Lamoureux said. A Speaker’s review of the remarks is pending.The deficit, initially forecast at $39.8 billion, was revised by the Budget Office to $46.4 billion in its October 17 Economic And Fiscal Outlook. Additional spending, including $250 pre-election rebate cheques and a temporary GST suspension on certain holiday items, could push the figure higher by $5 billion to $10 billion.“Driving up the deficit is only going to make inflation worse,” said Tochor, linking the Liberals' spending to the rising cost of living. “Surprise, we’re in a cost of living crisis because the Liberals have kept spending more and more money, driving inflation up higher and higher.”Tochor also accused the government of relying too heavily on debt financing. “There is no money left to pay the bills,” he said. “Out here, you know what governments do when they run out of money? This government has done it a lot. They print money.”Parliament has not balanced a budget since 2007. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in 2020 assured MPs that “there are limits” on overspending but did not specify a cap. Since then, the national debt ceiling has risen twice, reaching a record $2.1 trillion under the Borrowing Authority Act. The previous ceiling was $1.17 trillion in 2021.Freeland defended the government’s fiscal approach earlier this year. “Let’s be honest on what austerity and a shrunken federal government would mean for Canadians. It would mean you would have to fend for yourselves. That is not how we do things here in Canada,” she said on April 30. “Today we are turning to our younger generation and those who care about them to say, ‘Our government is at your service.’”
