Remarks by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in Gatineau

October 17, 2022

Thank you, Steve, for the warm welcome and thanks to the workers who are here.

The remarkable work being done by companies like this one can help to power the world and create the good jobs of today and tomorrow—for workers here in Quebec and across Canada.

And later, I want to speak about the work that lies ahead—about how we can ensure that workers here in Gatineau and right across the country can benefit from a changing global economy.

But first, I want to talk a bit about our economy today—about what people from coast-to-coast-to-coast are feeling right now. I spent my summer travelling across Canada—21 different cities and towns—to meet with Canadian workers and Canadian businesses.

I visited a family farm in Alberta, a potash mine in Saskatchewan, a start-up in Ontario, and the Port of Saint John in New Brunswick.

I spoke with new parents and union workers and the truckers who keep our economy moving.

In Quebec, earlier this year, I met with those who will make Quebec and Canada a leader in creating charging stations.

I heard about the need to strengthen our supply chains, the need to create more good middle class jobs, and the critical need to build more of the homes that a growing country needs.

And today, I will be having discussions with those who are developing one of the largest green hydrogen projects in Canada.

But underlying all of the conversations I had—from one end of the country to the other—was the real uncertainty that Canadians are feeling today.

We have just come through a once-in-a-generation pandemic. We turned the Canadian economy off, and then we turned it back on again. Vladimir Putin invaded the sovereign territory of Ukraine. And now we are dealing with inflation.

These are all related, of course. Global inflation is not borne of the decisions of any one government alone, but of the combined aftershocks of two-and-a-half years of historic tumult.

But that does not lessen the impact it is having on Canadians. I know how challenging these past few months, with their higher prices at the grocery store and at the gas pump, have been for people across Canada.

I know that it’s felt like one thing after another since COVID first reached our shores in February of 2020.

It’s important, as both the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, that I’m honest with Canadians about what lies ahead.

Even as inflation retreats in the months to come, it will still be a difficult time—for our friends, for members of our families, for our neighbours, and for the people in our communities.

Our economy will slow, as the central bank must step in to tackle inflation.

There will be people whose mortgage payments will rise. Business will no longer be booming in the same way it has since we left our homes and went back into the world. Our unemployment rate will no longer be at its record low.

That will be the case in Canada. That will be the case in the United States. And that will be the case in economies big and small around the world.

For the Canadians who need it the most—the most vulnerable among us; those who will feel the bite of rising prices most acutely—our government will be there with relief.

We have been already, with a doubling of the GST credit, with an increase to the Canada Workers Benefit, with a one-time payment to help those who need the most help to pay their rent, with a dental care system for children under 12 years old, and with other supports for our lowest-paid workers, for low-income renters, and for the others among us for whom inflation is making it impossible to make ends meet.

The doubling of the GST credit has already been passed by the House of Commons. This is good news, and it will soon provide some breathing space for those who need it most.

All of this support is targeted and fiscally responsible. It will not pour unnecessary fuel on the fire.

But today, and in the coming months, we cannot support every single Canadian in the way we did with the emergency measures during the pandemic.

We cannot compensate every single Canadian for the inflation driven by the pandemic and by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. To do so would only make inflation worse, and force the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates even higher.

Canadians are smart, and I know they understand that.

As we emerge from the pandemic, we are running a tight fiscal ship. Canada has the lowest debt and the lowest deficit in the G7, and we committed to a $9 billion cut to government spending in the 2022 budget.

Canadians are cutting back on costs, and so, too, is their government. It’s how we do our part to not make inflation both worse and longer-lasting.

There are still some difficult days ahead for Canada’s economy and for the economies of all of our friends and allies around the world. To say otherwise would be misleading. Anyone who claims they could prevent it is wrong.

But we will be ready.

Our social safety net will be there—the Employment Insurance and pensions that Canadians have been contributing to for their whole working lives. We are ensuring that Canada has the fiscal capacity to support those who need it most, if and when they do.

The months to come will be hard. It’s important that Canadians hear me say that. But our government will help Canadians navigate through these turbulent waters, just as we’ve done for the past two-and-a-half-years. It’s important that Canadians hear me say that, too.

But I also have good news.

We will get through it—the coming slowdown, for Canada and the world.

With the excess heat removed, our fundamental economic strengths will be preserved: our triple-A credit rating, stability and skilled workers who make us proud. The pandemic will be behind us—and no country in the world will be better placed than Canada to thrive in a post-COVID global economy.

The future for Canada is bright, if we choose to seize it. And our government has a plan to ensure we do.

In the Fall Economic Statement, I will lay out some of the steps we will take to seize that brighter future for Canada.

But today, I want to focus on one essential element of that plan.

Last week, I gave a speech about how the global economy—how the world—is changing in the aftermath of Vladimir Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine.

I spoke about how the world’s democracies must react to those changes, and about what we must do together to shape them.

I argued that we must strengthen the economic ties between democracies; show a willingness to welcome emerging democracies into that alliance, and fundamentally re-think how we interact with Russia and the other authoritarian economies.

The most important pillar to strengthen our connections with each other is that democracies must build supply chains through each other’s democratic economies—an idea that the US Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, has described as friendshoring.

Put simply: where democracies are the most strategically vulnerable, we should be able to depend on each other.

This shift represents a generational economic opportunity for Canada. It’s why I’ve come here: to see the work being accomplished in Canada, and to meet the remarkable Quebecers who are doing it.

It’s because of places like this that we have the chance to lead the global economy in a way that exceeds our stature as a country of just 38 million people—to ensure our economy can thrive for generations to come, to make life more affordable, and to create thousands upon thousands upon thousands of new, good-paying jobs.

That is the task that lies ahead of us. That is the future that we can create for ourselves and our children. And here is why I am confident we can do it.

First: Canada has what the global economy needs.

We have the critical minerals and metals that are required for electric cars, cell phones, and the technologies of today and tomorrow. We have the food the world needs, and the fertilizer that farmers elsewhere need to grow their own.

As demonstrated by projects like this green hydrogen project, we have the natural resources to power the global green transition—the most significant economic transformation since the Industrial Revolution. We have the resources to support our allies with their energy security as that transition continues to pick up speed.

Places like this one, right here in Quebec, can help to power not just the Quebec or the Canadian economies, but the global economy.

Second, and critically: we are the democratic economy who has all of these resources in abundance.

Our allies are already looking at how they can shift their strategic dependence from dictatorships to democracies.

Germany, bracing for a cold winter stemming from an energy reliance on Russia, is now looking to Canada to receive hydrogen with an agreement signed in Newfoundland with the Prime Minister. With the Inflation Reduction Act, the United States moved from a Buy American policy to a Buy North American policy on critical minerals and electric vehicles.

Friendshoring is happening already, and as it accelerates in the months and years to come, Canada will be ready—with the clean electricity grid, like the one that supplies homes in the Outaouais with green hydrogen, the strong environmental and labour standards, the robust institutions, the triple-A credit rating and stability that is the envy of our allies, and the commitment to the rule of law that our allies and their leading businesses are looking for in a safe place to invest.

We have already been making investments to prepare for this shift, with Canada’s first critical minerals strategy and a Canada Growth Fund that will attract the billions of dollars in new private capital our economy needs, while creating good jobs for workers across Canada.

Last Tuesday, the Prime Minister announced a $222 million  investment with Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto will develop Canada's critical minerals sector. This will help make Canada a world leader in electric vehicle manufacturing.

These kinds of investments will help Canadian industries grow. They will help Canada become a reliable supplier of the resources our allies need. And they'll help create good jobs for workers across the country at the same time.

Investing in our industries means investing in jobs and workers. And that's why these investments are so important.

We have always been a government that believes that we need to invest directly in people and in workers, but our workers not only need affordable child care, a good health care system, Employment Insurance, pensions, and training.

Even if we know that all of these policies are important, our workers also need a government with a strong industrial policy, a government that is ready to invest aggressively in the green transition and crowd in private capital. This green industrial policy is a pro-worker policy since it will help to create the good-paying jobs that our workers need.

But there is no guarantee that we will succeed in taking advantage of this historic opportunity. If we don't work to make it happen, Australia, Chile and the United States, for example, could very well prevent us from taking advantage of it.

We need to address our productivity problem—the Achilles heel of our economy. And we need to encourage businesses to grow, invest and create good jobs here in Canada.

We need to ensure that workers have the skills for the good jobs of today and tomorrow. We need to welcome more of the immigrants that growing businesses need. And we need to have strong unions that will fight for workers in a growing economy.

We need to build an economy that works for everyone. With affordable housing and child care. With a resilient social safety net. We need to do it for the middle class and the people who work hard to get there.

All of this was central to last April's budget. It will also be a priority in the Fall Economic Statement. It will be a priority in the budget that follows in the spring.

Canadians also need to know that their government has a plan.

We will get through this together. When the clouds break, there will be bright skies ahead.

And when that happens, economic cooperation with our democratic allies will be a once-in-a-generation opportunity. For Canadians, that opportunity means prosperity for today and tomorrow. And we will be ready.

We will enjoy that prosperity by building an economy that works for everyone. By building a country with good middle-class jobs that allow everyone to earn a decent living.

We will build a Canada where no one is left behind.

We will get there, together.

Thank you very much.