In the News
In the Parliament
Standing Committee on Finance Embarks
on Study of Inflation
On Monday, January 17 the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance began a study of inflation in Canada. The motion adopted by the Committee calls for a study of inflation in housing and food, “repatriating supply chains for strategic goods,” and any other issue that the Committee deems pertinent. The study is expected to include at least 10 meetings, and the related report is to be submitted to the House of Commons no later than May 31, 2022. The motion for the study was put forward by the Conservative and Bloc Québécois members of the Committee.
Speaking to the motion, Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre attempted to connect the inflation crisis with the Liberals coming to power. “When Mr. Trudeau took office,” he said, “you could buy the average house in Canada for $450,000. […] We now have to pay $720,000 for the average house across Canada. In Toronto and Vancouver, it’s now over a million.[…] Home prices are up 58 per cent under this Prime Minister.”
Poilievre also presented the orientation he would like the Committee to take. Posturing as a defender of Canadians, he asked: “The question the committee must answer is this: Where is the money coming from? It’s not coming from a strong economy or growing wages, because we have neither, but it must be coming from somewhere because everything comes from somewhere and nothing comes from nowhere. Answering that question and solving the riddle will explain why this balloon is inflating so fast and abruptly, and it will allow us to halt the inflation before the balloon bursts altogether …”
Witnesses expected to be called for the study include Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland; Peter Routledge, the Superintendent of Financial Institutions; Romy Bowers, President and CEO of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation; Senior Management at Sagen and Canada Guaranty; the Chief Statistician of Statistics Canada and any officials responsible for the Consumer Price Index. The list of witnesses and the rule adopted by the Committee for witnesses invited to appear before it show how the opposition parties in the parliament are eking out a useless existence paid by the public purse. The rule adopted for the committee’s proceedings states “a witness response to a question [must] take no longer than the time taken to ask the question.”
(Renewal Update, posted February 7, 2022)
