Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak on the subject of the throne speech. Looking around makes me think of how much things have changed since February and March, when this pandemic hit, and how we have had to adjust our ways with the need to be cautious.

I would not call this pandemic an adjustment, annoyance or inconvenience, although it is all of those things and we feel them every day. It is not an economic shock like we had in the 1970s with the rising price of oil. A more apt word for what we are living through is “disruption”. By that I mean that this pandemic is going to cause transformational change in our society in the same way that World War II caused transformational change. We know that World War II was followed by a baby boom, economic and technological development, mass production, television, the expansion of the suburbs, a new consumer culture that drove the economy, the birth of the youth culture and the quest for the moon. This is a pivotal moment in history, the same way that World War II was a pivotal moment in history.

We are at a crossroads, and I cannot predict what the long-term effects of this pandemic will be. I am no Alvin Toffler, author of the well-known book Future Shock, but I have a few ideas that I think are realistic.

For example, I think that we are now going to put a higher priority on family, community and neighbours. We are going to take better care of our seniors. Perhaps there will be more interest in medical and other health care professions.

Perhaps we will also be more aware of the benefits of nature. We took going out for walks for granted, but all of a sudden we realized that we might not always be able to do that and that we had to pay attention. We now take great pleasure in taking a walk in a park and enjoying the freedom that we always took for granted before.

Perhaps we will see the social safety net in a different light, because we realized how much we have to help one another. We give each other that help through social programs like the ones our government announced over the course of this pandemic. Perhaps we will also realize how easy it is to get into financial difficulty. Even if everything is going well for us in life, all of a sudden we might find ourselves in serious financial difficulties through no fault of our own. In some ways, we are moving to a new society.

The throne speech and Bill C-4 recognize that we are at a transformational moment. They seek to ensure that Canadians are not left behind by this transformation and, in fact, evolve with it, through the support measures that are required to ensure that we can maintain our standard of living and can continue to have a productive economy. There are investments in, for example, green technologies and even blue technologies, as the throne speech did mention water, a topic that I have been interested in for quite a while.

The throne speech is visionary in the sense that there is a short-term component and a long-term component. It announced a series of goals and objectives that are intended to bring us into this new era with all the right policies in all the right areas.

World War II had grave fiscal consequences. In a similar way, this pandemic has changed the financial picture for governments, not only here in Canada but around the world. For sure, Canadians are concerned about the fiscal impacts of this pandemic. I speak to constituents who ask me about the deficit and the debt. However, I think it is important that we put these things in perspective, not to minimize or discount them, but to ensure that we have an enlightened and informed discussion on the best path forward.

We will have a projected deficit in 2021. We said that it was going to be $343 billion, but the PBO disagreed and said that it would be $328 billion. Members cannot accuse the government of fudging numbers.

Coming out of World War II, the debt-to-GDP ratio was 100% and the deficit-to-GDP ratio was 21%. Today, the PBO forecasts that the debt-to-GDP ratio will be under 50%. What was the debt-to-GDP ratio at the end of the Mulroney Conservative era? It was 66%, so we absolutely need to put things in perspective.

We know there is a rule that has been taught to us by indigenous peoples. It is the seven generation rule and it generally applies to decisions that impact the environment. The rule says that if we pose an action that impacts the environment, we should think of the next seven generations to see how that decision will impact the environment for the next seven generations. I think we should apply this to our financial decisions as well.

How will the financial decisions we are making today impact future generations? We talk a lot about future generations in the context of the budget deficit. Let us think for a moment. What if we had not taken the measures that we took? What would that have meant for future generations? What would that have meant for the young person who could not get their career started, who could not find a job, who could not earn money to pay for their education? Those young people would form what we might call a lost generation. We are very fortunate that we are at a time in history when interest rates are very low and, if interest rates remain low and the growth rate exceeds interest rates, we will be able to bring down the deficit.

I would like to quote from Michael Smart in an article in The Globe and Mail, who talks about the relationship between economic growth rates and interest rates:

After major economic depressions in our past, economic growth exceeded interest rates for decades at a stretch, allowing past governments to gradually reduce the debt without undue hardship for Canadians. In fact, in historical terms, the fiscal crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s was an aberration—the only period since 1900 when interest rates exceeded growth rates for an extended period.

I know that on the other side of the House members try to paint a picture of doom and gloom and say we are on the cusp of financial ruin, but who do we believe? Do we believe a political party that is creating a narrative for the purpose of political gain, or do we believe those who are invested in the economy, who have invested billions of dollars in the economy and who watch the government’s moves very closely? At the first sign of bad economic policy, they will abandon markets and give us a lower credit rating. Do we listen to them, or do we listen to the Conservative opposition?

Let us hear what those who have invested in the economy and keep a close eye on economic decisions by governments are saying about Canada. This was in Bloomberg News, and I will quote what Standard and Poors said:

While fiscal and debt metrics will worsen due to the size of the unprecedented government response, we believe that the government’s use of its policy flexibility will likely help the economy and labour market to recover. The largely temporary deviation of the government’s fiscal profile does not offset Canada’s structural credit strengths, in our view.

I rest my case.