A trip — and fall — down memory lane with Canada’s Conservative leader Poilievre conveniently forgets his party’s demands for big pandemic spending from Liberal government By: Tom Brodbeck Posted: 7:00 PM CST Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/12/2022 (743 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Conservative Party of Canada might have a leg to stand on in its criticism of government spending during the COVID-19 pandemic if it wasn’t among those demanding Ottawa open the purse strings at the time.

CPC Leader Pierre Poilievre continues to claim falsely that emergency financial assistance paid out by government during the pandemic is the main cause of inflation in Canada. The consensus among economists is that inflation is a global phenomena caused by many factors, including high energy prices, supply-chain disruptions and the war in Ukraine.

A Scotiabank report released last week found 85 per cent of inflation in Canada since the end of 2019 can be attributed to global factors, including higher commodity prices, exchange rate fluctuations and supply-chain issues. Government spending, while a significant factor in driving up local demand, accounts for only about 0.45 percentage points of inflation, the report found.

Despite that, Poilievre and the Conservatives continue to peddle the false claim government spending and the Bank of Canada’s monetary policies are the main drivers of price increases. Had the federal government not spent tens of billions during the pandemic to support struggling Canadians and businesses, the country would not be battling inflation, he says.

Even if that were true, Poilievre and the CPC would have to bear some responsibility for that: they were among the many groups demanding government open the spending taps during the pandemic.

In March 2020, the CPC issued a news release calling on the federal government to boost the wage subsidy for businesses and take measures to help struggling Canadians.

“Conservatives will always support measures to put more money in Canadians’ pockets during this unprecedented time and we are ready to return to Ottawa next week to pass the government’s emergency legislation,” then-Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said in the release.

The Tories were critical of the Trudeau government for not spending enough. They wanted Ottawa to increase the size of the wage subsidy, refund all GST remittances to small businesses from the previous six months and provide banks with government-backed guaranteed loans for small business.

Talk about “printing money.”

“Small businesses across the country are being particularly hard hit by this crisis and need urgent support,” said Scheer. “Employers are being forced to lay off workers and have no idea how or if they will survive. Unfortunately, the federal government’s response to date has fallen far short of meeting their needs.”

The Conservatives weren’t the only ones demanding governments spend more to support unemployed Canadians and businesses crippled by the pandemic. Pretty much everybody agreed governments had to intervene in a big way to prevent the economy from falling into a deep and prolonged recession, even if that meant driving up the deficit.

When the Liberal government jacked up the wage subsidy for businesses the following week (from 10 per cent to 75 per cent) and announced guaranteed interest-free loans, the Conservatives took credit for it. Scheer said on Twitter that government “took my advice.” He continued to demand Ottawa refund GST remittances.

When the Liberal government jacked up the wage subsidy for businesses the following week (from 10 per cent to 75 per cent) and announced guaranteed interest-free loans, the Conservatives took credit for it.

“These are unprecedented times and Conservatives will keep working to ensure Canadians, workers and small businesses affected by COVID-19 have the help they need,” said Scheer.

Poilievre, who was Conservative finance critic at the time, called the federal government’s announcement on wage subsidies a “flip flop.” Still, he supported the move. “Conservatives will study the proposal and support anything that saves entrepreneurs,” he posted on Twitter.

According to an Auditor General of Canada report released last week, the federal wage subsidy made up nearly half of Ottawa’s $211 billion in pandemic aid to individuals and businesses. It was big money, but a needed response to avoid economic ruin.

It’s easy to criticize that now, especially since a small portion of that spending ended up in the hands of ineligible recipients, according to the auditor general. However, like everyone else at the time, the Conservatives were front and centre, demanding the Trudeau government spend more, not less. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca

Tom Brodbeck
Columnist

Tom has been covering Manitoba politics since the early 1990s and joined the Winnipeg Free Press news team in 2019.

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