Bill C-234

An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act

This enactment amends the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to expand the definition of eligible farming machinery and extend the exemption for qualifying farming fuel to marketable natural gas and propane.

Opposition Motion—Summer Tax Break

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Madam Speaker, after nine years under the Prime Minister, Canadians are being forced to cancel their summer vacations, as the Liberals' tax-and-spend agenda has made even a simple road trip unaffordable. Parents can barely afford basic necessities, much less a summer vacation. The Prime Minister may be able to jet off on a $230,000 luxury vacation, but most Canadians are having to scale back and cancel their summer plans after the Liberal carbon tax made gas and groceries unaffordable.

Like all MPs in the House, I am getting emails and calls from moms and dads who are struggling to pay their bills and put food on the table. I am hearing from seniors who worked for decades to save for their retirement, only to see inflation eradicate their income and their financial security. As someone who represents a large, rural constituency, I know how the carbon tax disproportionately impacts the people who call Westman home.

At a time when life is costing far more for my constituents, the Prime Minister's recent budget does nothing to bring the relief families desperately need. As the costs of groceries, gas and home heating continue to increase, the NDP-Liberal government fails to listen to Canadians.

I am glad to be splitting my time with my colleague from Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry.

As my constituents back home know, the Liberals have voted down numerous calls from our Conservative team to scrap the carbon tax. Instead, the Liberals increased it even more, despite the financial hurt Canadians are feeling. The reality is that more and more families are struggling to afford basic necessities. When people find themselves in financial troubles, as they are today, even simple pleasures end up falling by the wayside.

For many, a summer vacation is not a big, dramatic, expensive getaway. It could be a long weekend at the cottage, a week-long road trip or simply a few days of camping. It is a treasured opportunity to get away from business as usual, unplug and recharge with loved ones. Kids need time with their parents and grandparents; they need the chance to experience the outdoors and appreciate the beauty of our great country here in Canada.

Unfortunately, thanks to the NDP-Liberal coalition, the Prime Minister was able to hike his carbon tax by 23% on April 1, further driving up the cost of everything. The fact is that 70% of Canadians oppose this tax hike; moreover, 70% of the provincial premiers have asked the Prime Minister to stop this painful tax increase, and for good reason.

Canada's Food Price Report predicted an additional $700 annual increase in food expenditures for the average family this year over 2023. The most significant increases range from 5% to 7% in the categories of bakery, meat and vegetables. Last year, food banks had to handle a record two million visits in a single month, with a million more visits expected in 2024. Homeless encampments are now common in every city across Canada, and their number continues to increase.

The decline in the Canadian economy since 2019, created by the Liberal Prime Minister, means Canadians are now poorer by $4,200 per person. While the American GDP per capita has grown by 7% since 2019, Canada's has fallen by 2.8%. This is the single largest underperformance of the Canadian economy in comparison with our United States neighbours since 1965.

We have already seen the real-world impact of this in our own backyard. In Brandon, the Samaritan House food bank gave out nearly 36,000 hampers last year, a dramatic increase of 12,000. As I have said in the chamber a few times, this was 50% above its normal annual average. This is in line with trends across the country, showing that families are struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table. We recently found that more than 50,000 Manitobans are now regularly using a food bank. That is the highest number ever recorded.

While we can get bogged down in statistics, we must never forget that we are talking about people: our relatives, our neighbours and our friends. Food banks are being used by full-time workers more and more. In some communities, one in six visitors says they are employed, which is an 82% increase over 2016. That number continues to grow. More than 60% of visitors are first-time food bank users. It is heartbreaking. There are hundreds and thousands of Canadians who have been forced to stay in line in food banks only because the NDP-Liberal coalition is determined to make life equally miserable for all Canadians.

Let us be clear: The rising cost of food and other necessities cannot be divorced from the NDP-Liberal government's tax-and-spend policies. The carbon tax alone is driving up the cost of everything. It is contributing to the cost of growing our food and other expenses along the entire food supply system. It gets passed down until everyday Canadians get stuck with the bill.

Despite numerous claims by the Prime Minister and his radical environment minister, the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer confirmed that families are seeing a net loss under this ideological policy. People pay more in the carbon tax than they receive back from the rebate. Conservatives have been pointing this out for years. Nothing is more insulting to the millions of Canadians trying to heat their homes in the winter than when the Prime Minister decided to temporarily pause his carbon tax on only 3% of households. It is no wonder that provincial governments are up in arms.

The most recent example of how out of touch and stubborn the Prime Minister can be is his position on Bill C-234. This is a Conservative bill that aims to remove the carbon tax for farmers, thereby lowering food costs that are passed on to consumers. Instead of using an opportunity to lower food prices by passing the bill, or at least letting it pass with no political interference, he did everything possible in the House of Commons and the Senate to delay change and undermine it. Moreover, the Liberals and their NDP coalition partners decided to hike the carbon tax by 23% in April. That was just one step in their plan to quadruple the carbon tax over the next six years, making everything more expensive at the worst possible time. At the same time, their inflationary spending and ever-increasing taxes are already taking their toll, and paycheques are not going as far as they once did.

While the NDP leader is trying to save what is left of his political legacy, we must not forget that every NDP member voted 23 times to keep the Prime Minister's carbon tax in place. I will not stop calling on them to do the right thing and support our Conservative motion this time.

This year, the Prime Minister's carbon tax will cost Manitobans an extra $1,750. This summer alone, it will take more than $600 from family budgets. These costs add up, and even the most basic summer vacation plan suddenly becomes out of reach for people. The constituents of Brandon—Souris are disproportionately affected by the carbon tax. The riding covers more than 17,000 square kilometres. It is the ninth-smallest riding in Canada. Brandon—Souris is roughly the same size as three Prince Edward Islands put together. That may be hard to picture for the finance minister, who lives in downtown Toronto. The Liberal government needs to start realizing that its policies affect rural and urban Canadians quite differently.

We know the Liberal carbon tax is playing a role in raising the price of everything, so we are fighting to axe the tax and bring relief to Canadians. Let us save $603 this summer for Canadians. They need it. People know better how and where to spend their own money, and the Prime Minister must recognize this fact. Let us put a pause on the carbon tax, the federal gas tax, and the GST on gasoline and diesel for the summer. We must do it now.

If we want to help young people, families and seniors deal with the rising cost of living, I implore all my colleagues to vote in favour of our Conservative motion. A future Conservative government will axe the tax on everything for everyone in a carbon tax election, but until that can happen, the Prime Minister must adopt this common-sense measure to give Canadians a break this summer.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to start by saying that two people from my riding are here in Ottawa. These two young people are just embarking on their political careers. Audrey-Anne and Annabelle have been learning a lot during their time in Ottawa. I hope they will enjoy the debate. I am very pleased to have them here in Ottawa with us. I would also like to thank my colleague from Calgary Midnapore for her excellent speech.

After nine years, this Prime Minister and his Bloc Québécois supporters are just not worth the cost of $500 billion in Bloc-endorsed inflationary spending that is forcing parents to skip meals to save their families.

Today's motion is about suspending the gas tax for the summer. While the Bloc Québécois leader and a number of the MPs on his team are campaigning to radically increase gas taxes, Quebeckers in the regions who do not have access to public transit are paying a hefty price. Talk about being completely out of touch with Quebec. I will say more about that later in my speech.

I have a few statistics about the impact that nine years of this Prime Minister's government has had on Quebeckers. This year, food banks are helping 872,000 people every month. That is a 30% increase over 2022 and 73% over 2019. In 2019, 500,000 people were helped by food banks every month. Now there are 872,000. Behind those statistics shared by the press are human beings, vulnerable people, families, children, single people who are experiencing food insecurity and do not know whether they will have enough to eat each day. More and more working families are seeking help because people just do not have the means to cope with all the increases imposed by nine years of this Liberal government.

I want to quote from an article entitled “Housing has become a privilege”:

Soon, there will be nowhere for us to go, those of us who do not make a lot of money and who live in vulnerable situations. Housing prices are so high!

Among them, there are people who will end up in the encampments that are popping up everywhere.

In another article entitled “Housing crisis and mental health: Quebec organizations call out for help”, a spokesperson for the Regroupement des comités logements et associations de locataires du Québec states the following:

We hear from tenants who intend to commit suicide. This is more than just despair. They do not see a way out, and they want it to be over. That is what it has come to.

I have one last article from the Journal de Montréal entitled “Proof of of the housing crisis, she will soon be forced to live in her van”. Here is a quote:

This is what's become of me. I feel ashamed. I'm mad at myself, but also at the government, which treats it like a political issue. It's not a political issue, it's a crisis!

Nine years of Liberal governance has led us to this crisis, and we need to find solutions. We need to take action to help Quebeckers and Canadians get through this. The Bloc Québécois is certainly not helping Quebeckers by supporting $500 billion in inflationary spending by this government.

What is $500 billion in inflationary spending? It is the government's budgetary appropriations. These appropriations represent the money we voted on in Parliament. What are they funding? They are funding the bureaucracy, the consultants, the agencies, and the contributions to corporations and lobbies. In short, it is the money being used to fuel the big federal monster from which the separatists want to separate. It is rather surprising. We would think that a separatist party would vote against this budget that helps fuel this big federal monster. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

The leader of the Conservative Party raised a very important point in the House. He said that he found it fascinating that a so-called separatist party from Quebec literally never supported reducing the tax burden on Quebeckers. That party never supports tax cuts. One would think that a separatist party would never support forcing Quebeckers to send their money to Ottawa, but no. In their own words, Bloc members want to drastically increase taxes.

When we think about it, it is true. Today, the Bloc Québécois claims to vote in the interest of Quebeckers, but we see that it is not true. We see that it is just a slogan. What the Bloc Québécois is really saying is that it will always vote in the interest of its party and its little brother in Quebec City, the Parti Québécois. The Parti Québécois does not represent all Quebeckers.

If the Bloc Québécois really wanted to vote for all Quebeckers, it would not hesitate to vote for Bill C‑234 as it was written. It was designed to abolish the carbon tax imposed on farmers. As everyone knows, if we tax the people who make the food, the food will cost more. Who is going to pay for more expensive food? Everyone, obviously.

If the Bloc Québécois were truly the party for Quebeckers, and not the federal branch of the Parti Québécois, it would think about people in the regions. I am talking about people in Matane, Joliette, Thetford Mines, Mirabel, Saint-Hyacinthe, the people who need their vehicles to get around, to go to work, for recreation. Yes, these people need their vehicles to get around.

A study was published by Le Journal de Montréal in 2023. The article was entitled, “Cost of living: How much does it cost to live outside the big cities?” I would like to quote from it:

Living outside the major centres of Montreal, Quebec City, Trois-Rivières, Saguenay, Sept-Îles, Gatineau and Sherbrooke can get expensive pretty quickly. The further away you live, the higher the cost of living. A family of two adults and two children can survive on a livable income of $71,161 a year in Montreal, but it increases to $76,918 in Sept-Îles. In Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, in the Gaspé Peninsula, that number rises to $78,621.

Why? The answer is simple, “The big difference between the cost of living in town and in the regions is the need for a car. If you have a family, you have two cars.” A father of four in Cap-d'Espoir said, “They need gas and gas is more expensive than it is in Montreal. It all adds up, so yes, there are things that cost more.”

Like the Liberals, the Bloc wants people in the regions to pay more for getting around. They would like the carbon tax to be drastically increased. I have a pile of statements here from Bloc Québécois members calling for the tax to be drastically increased, who say that the tax is not high enough and that we should immediately triple it to make people pay for pollution. For people living in the regions, pollution is the fuel they put in their car to get around, to go to work, to take part in leisure activities.

Not wanting to budge from that sort of ideology has consequences. Unfortunately, the consequences are that Quebec families, workers in the regions are paying the price. I would like the Bloc Québécois to realize that. The Bloc Québécois members want to punish Quebeckers to appease their conscience by making them pay more for fuel. It is an essential commodity for those who live in the regions, who do not have access to structured public transit services like those in the big city.

I am eager to see whether the Bloc Québécois will support our motion today to suspend federal taxes on fuel. Does the Bloc Québécois agree that Quebeckers should keep their money in their pockets instead of sending it to Ottawa? If we were to ask that question to anyone in Quebec, they would say that that is surely not what the Bloc Québécois wants.

However, from what I have heard today from the representatives of the Bloc, it is apparently not that easy or straightforward. One would expect it to be a no-brainer for a party that wants to separate from the big federal machine. Unfortunately, I would be very surprised if the Bloc Québécois supported us, because, as I said earlier, they want to drastically increase gas taxes. To keep expanding the big federal Liberal machine, the Bloc Québécois will keep sending Quebeckers' money to Ottawa. Once again, I will quote the member from Carleton:

The Bloc Québécois supports high taxes, massive federal debt and a bloated bureaucracy that meddles in everything but is good at nothing. We should also remember that the Bloc Québécois supports a justice system that frees repeat offenders and bans hunting rifles. In fact, an independent Quebec with the leader of the Bloc Québécois as premier would be almost identical to the federal state led by the current Prime Minister.

When we look at the facts and at the action taken by the members of the Bloc Québécois in the House, we cannot help but agree with the words of the Leader of the Opposition. To really change things so that Quebeckers have more money in their pockets, members need to support this Conservative motion, which seeks to suspend the federal gas tax. I think that there is only one real option for Quebeckers who want more money in their pockets and that is the Conservative Party's common-sense plan.

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, a month ago I rose in this place and talked about the Conservative delay on Bill C-234, a bill they have been championing. This week, we found out they delayed it two weeks forward, again, to play politics on farmers' backs. On this side of the House, we act. On this side of the House, we support farmers, and we are proud of farmers. What we do not do is play politics on their backs.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, my question is to the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. The Conservative Party continues to delay Bill C-234. I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Agri-Food and Agriculture can give us an update.

Opposition Motion—Federal Intrusions in the Exclusive Jurisdictions of Quebec and the Provinces

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since my colleague quoted me during his speech, I would like to ask him a few quick questions.

First, I would like to know why he committed the sin of omission when he assumed that we were inconsistent. Conservatives are very consistent. We did not support the Bloc Québécois's proposed subamendment on the budget for a very simple reason. In its subamendment, the Bloc Québécois wanted to eliminate the protection we wanted to give to farmers. The Bloc proposed respecting the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, and granting Quebec and the provinces the right to opt out with full compensation. That is what the Bloc is doing today too, and we support that.

However, the Bloc Québécois also suggested that we withdraw our subamendment, which proposed abolishing the tax imposed on farmers, which then gets applied to food, by immediately passing Bill C-234 in its original form in order to build housing, not bureaucracy by requiring cities to increase residential construction by 15% every year as a condition for obtaining federal infrastructure funds.

I have a great deal of respect for my colleague. I sincerely wonder how he can live with himself, trying to mislead people like he just did a few moments ago.

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Mr. Speaker, after nine years of this Prime Minister, excessive spending and anti-agricultural policies are driving our farmers into bankruptcy. According to the Union des producteurs agricoles, one in five farms is no longer able to pay its debts.

With the help of the Bloc Québécois, the government is stifling our agricultural sector by blocking Bill C‑234 and voting for centralizing and inflationary spending.

When will this Liberal-Bloc government give our farmers a break so they can feed our already hungry population?

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you very much.

In the spirit and good faith of trying to help improve food security for Canadians, I would like to move the following motion that has been put on notice:

Given that:

a. Food insecurity is a serious and growing issue in Canada;

b. In Toronto alone, the Daily Bread Food Bank served 301,354 clients in February 2024, up from 215,848 in February, 2023 and from 52,522 in 2015;

c. All members of the House should work together to address this issue;

The committee recommend that the House expeditiously pass Bill C-234 unamended in order to exempt farms from the carbon tax and lower the cost of groceries for Canadians.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

—in this place, that our farmers in Canada grow safe, nutritious food not only to feed Canadians, but also to feed the world. They are also an integral part of helping with food insecurity abroad. I think that's very important to note.

We know the Trudeau carbon tax is particularly punishing for our farmers, and it jeopardizes the long-term viability of farms in Canada, which is where we get our food from.

We know Canadian farmers, as I said, provide safe, nutritious food not only to Canadians, but also to those around the world. Why, then, did you vote against Bill C-234, which would have removed the carbon tax for farmers and made food more affordable for families to purchase?

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. It really is a pleasure. I always joke that I am not sure how a kid from North Kamloops ended up in the House of Commons, but here I am.

Before I begin, I want to recognize some people from my riding. The first is Bruce Barrett. Mr. Barrett, as I called him, was my art teacher at Westsyde Secondary School. I just saw that he has passed away. Bruce Barrett had a very gentle heart. I did not get to know him well, but I knew him to be a very good person. I send my condolences to his family. May perpetual light shine upon him.

I also want to recognize the life of Pearl Bostock. I went to high school with some of Pearl's grandchildren. I see that she has recently passed away. I send my deepest condolences to her family. May perpetual light shine upon her.

Lastly, I want to recognize the life of Marlene Campbell. I went to kindergarten with Marlene's son. To this day, I would often call her Mrs. Campbell because I had trouble calling her by her first name. I was in her daughter's wedding party. I have known her for over 40 years. I still have not come to grips with the fact that she recently passed on, and there are some lessons that she taught me that I am going to touch upon in this speech. I offer my condolences to her husband, Bruce, to her daughters, Claire and Joan, and to sons, Matthew, Luke and John. May perpetual light shine upon her.

I was speaking about Mrs. Campbell, and one of the things that I learned from her, and sometimes we would agree and sometimes we would disagree, was the value of simplicity, frugality and transparency. I walked into her house a couple of years ago, and I said that it felt like I was back in 1986 because the house was exactly the same.

There is a part of me that thinks government should be like that. Why does government have to be flashy? The whole point of the government is to get the job done. If the government is actually getting the job done, we should not need a 400-page document, and it really looks like a mini phone book now, telling us how great the government is, that we have never had it so good.

This is a government that is creating board after board, tribunal after tribunal, making government bigger and bigger. I believe the public service has grown by 42%. However, is the passport service any better? Is immigration any better? The former immigration minister and now housing minister lost track of what, a million people? Is he a potential leadership candidate? He lost track of all of these people, and with this inflation, not only in finances, but with government just building upon government.

Perhaps the question we have to ask ourselves is not why we are spending but how we should be spending efficiently. The reason I say that is because I have frontline government workers that come to me day after day, it feels like, saying that they get told from the top, but nobody talks to them about efficiency. They are actually being told to cut because the government has promised so much.

We chuckled when the member across the way talked about building four million houses. This is a government that cannot even plant two billion trees. Planting a tree is a problem. Staying out of the penalty box with the Ethics Commissioner is a problem. They cannot even do that. They cannot plant a tree. They are actually double counting. I filled in at a committee, and the government was double counting from two different programs to make it look like it was meeting different targets in planting trees. These are not the lessons of simplicity and frugality.

The government can extol its programs all it wants and say something is a success. I received a letter from a dentist who services my family saying to hold on a second when it comes to dental care. He said this is not what we think it is. In fact, I would love to bring the letter to the House. Perhaps I could bring it to the House to give it to the member for Winnipeg North. We could table it. Liberals are so confident that dental care is the be all and end all.

What about the people who cannot find child care services? What about that? Unlike Mrs. Campbell, the government does not fashion itself on simplicity, transparency and frugality. In fact, it is a government that said it would be open by default, yet all it does is attempt to obfuscate when the going gets tough.

Members can look at ArriveCAN, where Liberal friends got rich, and they do not want people to know that. They are fine spending money, but more concretely, these Liberals are fine spending our money, Canadian's money and my family's money, the tax money.

I love pasta as much as the next person. I will admit it. My mom makes the best gnocchi out there. For those who do not know, gnocchi is a little dumpling. She makes them by hand using two fingers and they are hand rolled. They are very labour intensive because each one literally needs to be hand rolled. I like pasta. I would like to think I even make a mean carbonara.

Here, what do we have? A private business, presumably making a profit, and the government is giving it $1.7 million for 10 jobs. It looks great. It wants to save the riding, so they are giving $1.7 million for 10 jobs. The government calls that an investment. The NDP will do cartwheels talking about corporate bailouts and corporate giveaways, and then will vote with the government on the line items that enable that very giving. I like pasta, and there is a lot of pasta to be bought. I do not know why the government is saying, to perhaps four to five families, that every dollar they pay in taxes will go to the tune of $170,000 per job.

Let us talk about these auto contracts the government loves to talk about. There are some estimates that we are subsidizing to the tune of $1 million a job. I drive an electric car. I drive it, but what I am seeing is that demand is going down. I really like my vehicle. I do, but demand is going down, and they are saying they are investing. I have made some bad investments in my day, and when the stock went down, we suffered from it.

This budget talks about protecting farmers from the cost of climate change. If Liberals want to do something for farmers, they could pass Bill C-234 in its original form, rather than obfuscating and the member for Winnipeg North telling us we have never had it so good.

At what point will the government wake up and realize the budget does not balance itself, that it has doubled the debt, and now with interest rates being double, and in some cases triple, Canadians are hurting. Its members talk about school programs. How many students are going hungry because of their policies? I could go on for hours about this. I could go on for hours about what the member from Winnipeg said, but I am going to move a motion, seconded by the member for Edmonton West. It is an amendment to the motion.

I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

“Bill C-59, an Act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 21, 2023, and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023, be not now read a third time, but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Finance for the purpose of reconsidering all of its clauses with the view to amend the bill so as to give Canadians a break this summer by eliminating the carbon tax, the federal fuel tax, and GST on gasoline and diesel.”

Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity tonight to speak to the budget.

A big part of what politicians do is decide which problems in society need to be solved by governments and which problems are best left to individuals and to families and to the private sector.

The Liberal government, with its NDP coalition partners, spends a great deal of time, effort, energy and taxpayers' money trying to solve all sorts of problems, while unfortunately accomplishing very little and more often than not being counterproductive.

I remember when the finance minister presented her budget last month. She received one partial standing ovation from the official opposition when she said:

There are those who claim that the only good thing government can do when it comes to economic growth is to get out of the way.

The finance minister went on to cite the example of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project as an example of her government's success when it comes to government intervention in the economy. It was not too long ago that resource companies and international investors were excited about all of the potential pipeline projects in this country, such as northern gateway, Keystone XL and energy east, just to name a few.

Building pipelines such as these is something that private sector companies are able to do in most countries, but sadly not in Canada. All of the blueprints for all of these pipeline projects have been sitting on the shelf collecting dust for years because the Liberal government has made it practically impossible for the private sector to get projects like this built through its anti-development legislation, such as Bill C-69, the “no more pipelines” bill, and Bill C-48, the “west coast oil tanker ban”.

It is sad that the finance minister would cite, as a success story, the one lonely, solitary pipeline expansion project that the government decided to take over while all the others were being chased away. It is also worth noting that this was not a new pipeline being built. It was simply the twinning of an existing pipeline, with a new pipe being laid right alongside the old one. This raises the question: How long did it take to build the new pipeline and how long did it take to build the old one?

The proposal for the original Trans Mountain pipeline was submitted for approval in 1951. Construction was finished in 1952. Compare that to the decade that it has taken for the expansion to be completed. That makes this project hardly anything for the Liberal government to brag about. One also cannot help but be concerned about the cost overruns that have happened under the Liberal government's watch. The Trans Mountain expansion was originally estimated to cost $7 billion. The final price came in at $34 billion.

When a fivefold increase in total cost is touted as a success story, that should give all Canadians pause the next time the Liberal government sets out on one of its interventions into the economy. The finance minister went on to talk about her government's new school lunch program. It seems that the Liberals have just recently discovered what Conservatives and food banks have been saying for years, namely that food bank use has skyrocketed under the Liberal government.

According to a report by Food Banks Canada, nearly two million Canadians had to use food banks in March of last year. That is a 32% increase from the year before. Furthermore, one third of food bank users are children. I did not hear the finance minister mention under whose watch food bank use skyrocketed. I did not hear anything in her speech about the Liberals increasing their carbon tax again this year on the farmers who grow the food, the truckers who truck the food and the grocers who refrigerate the food, and about all of those costs being passed on to consumers at the grocery store.

I also did not hear anything from the finance minister about passing Bill C-234 in its original form to exempt grain drying and barn heating from the carbon tax so that those costs are not passed on to consumers in the form of higher grocery prices.

I did not hear anything about the Liberals' $40-billion deficit driving up interest rates or the $60 billion in debt servicing charges making it more difficult for Canadians to make ends meet and causing Canadians to have to choose between putting a roof over their heads or putting food onto the dinner tables.

Instead of focusing on the root cause of the cost of living crisis, the Liberals have decided to bring in yet another government program. This time, it is a nationwide school lunch program. While school lunch programs are certainly a reasonable and beneficial public policy, anyone who bothers to take a brief skim of section 91 and section 92 of our Constitution will tell us this is clearly the jurisdiction of provincial governments and best left to provincial ministries of education and social services.

What I find so frustrating about the Liberal government is not only that it is bad at capitalism, but also that it is just as bad at socialism. Take, for example, the new Canada disability benefit. This program resulted from the passage of Bill C-22, a bill the Liberals introduced almost two years ago. The stated objective of this bill was actually very reasonable; it was to provide a social safety net for Canadians living with disabilities so that no one has to live in poverty due to a disability.

Personally, I have always felt programs such as this are best left to provincial governments. In my home province of Saskatchewan, we have a program called the Saskatchewan assured income for disability, SAID, program. I also believe very strongly in an inclusive society for persons with disabilities, so if the federal government wanted to join in, I certainly was not going to stand in the way. It seems that everyone else in this chamber felt the same way since Bill C-22 passed unanimously last year.

When the details of the Canada disability benefit were announced in the budget, they were certainly a disappointment for disability advocates everywhere, with the maximum benefit being only $200 per month and not one thin dime being paid out until July of next year. Two hundred dollars per month is not enough for anyone in this country to live off, even before inflation and the cost of living skyrocketed under the government.

After nine years of the Liberal government, and with the introduction of this budget, the size of the federal government and the cost of the federal government have now doubled under the Liberals' watch. After nine years, the government has come to the point where literally all of the revenue from the GST goes toward merely paying the interest on the federal debt. The Liberals are adding another $40 billion to the federal debt this year, which now stands at well over $1 trillion and rising.

I come back to the finance minister's statement, when she said that the only good thing the government can do when it comes to economic growth is to get out of the way. A more accurate statement would be that the only good thing that the current government can do is to get out of the way.

It is time for a new Conservative government to replace the Liberals and their NDP coalition partners and to fix the budget as well as the many other problems they have created. Therefore, Conservatives will vote against this budget and we will vote non-confidence in the government.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Speaker, if the leader of the Conservative Party has made one thing clear, it is that, after nine years, the NDP-Liberal government is not worth the cost. It is not worth the cost for the out-of-control spending. Federal government spending is up 43% since 2019. It is not worth the cost for increasing the deficit. Canada's total debt has ballooned to $1.4 trillion, up from $600 million in 2015 when Stephen Harper was prime minister. It is not worth the cost for interest payments. Canada's interest payments are higher than what we spend on health transfers. Plus, the incompetent finance minister forgot to lock in Canada's debts at lower interest rates, costing us billions more. It is not worth the cost for our hard-earned savings, as it is imposing the largest capital gains increase in decades. Because this budget, the government and the Prime Minister are not worth the cost, I will be proudly voting against this budget.

Before this budget came down in mid-April, common-sense Conservatives sent a letter to the Prime Minister with three demands to fix the budget: one, axe the tax on farmers and food by immediately passing Bill C-234 in its original form; two, build the homes, not bureaucracy, by requiring cities to permit 15% more homes each year as a condition for receiving federal infrastructure money; and, three, cap the spending with a dollar-for-dollar rule to bring down interest rates and inflation, so the government must save a dollar for every new dollar of spending. The Prime Minister refused to listen and the result is a budget that the NDP-Liberal government delivered just a few short weeks ago that is just more of the same that broke our country in the first place.

Common-sense Conservatives will not support this runaway train wreck of a budget, nor will we support the NDP-Liberal government, which has broken our country, because the truth is that the budgeting of the government is like pressing the accelerator on a runaway train. Its budgets have boosted spending by 43% since 2019, which is like pouring gas on the inflationary fire, which drives up interest rates. This increased spending further endangers our social programs and jobs by adding more debt and more interest payments. Frankly, this spending spree will not stop until common-sense Conservatives are able to start governing, stop that runaway train and turn it around.

The Liberals and their costly NDP partners are not worth the cost for any generation. The government has doubled rent, mortgage payments and down payments. Food is getting so expensive that food banks received a record two million visits in a single month last year, with a million additional visits expected this year.

While life has gotten worse for Canadians, the NDP-Liberals are spending more than ever before. This year's budget will include nearly $40 billion in new inflationary spending. Former Liberal governor of the Bank of Canada, David Dodge, said that this budget is the worst budget since 1982. This year, Canada will spend $54.1 billion to service the NDP-Liberal debt. This is more money than the government is sending to the provinces for health care. Both the Bank of Canada and former Liberal finance minister John Manley told the Prime Minister that he was pressing on the inflationary gas pedal with all this additional spending, but the Liberals did not listen. As a result, the Bank of Canada has implemented the most aggressive interest rate hikes in its history. As millions of Canadians are renewing their mortgages and know this right now, the NDP-Liberal government simply is not worth the cost.

Let us talk about the carbon tax. We will hear many myths coming from the NDP-Liberal government concerning the carbon tax. I want to dispel some of them for the people back in Saskatoon West who are watching.

The first myth is that the carbon tax does not add to inflation. Canadians know that is not true. They know it is making everything more expensive and miserable for everyone. The International Monetary Fund defines the carbon tax. It states:

Carbon taxes, levied on...oil products...in proportion to their carbon content, can be collected from fuel suppliers. They in turn will pass on the tax in the form of higher prices for electricity, gasoline, heating oil, and so on, as well as for the products and services that depend on them.

This is black and white. Carbon taxes are meant to make everything more expensive. Energy, products, food and everything else that we buy are all more expensive. Boy oh boy, has the NDP-Liberal carbon tax been very successful in making everything much more expensive. Anyone who goes to the grocery store knows the price of food has increased astronomically since the carbon tax came into effect. One cannot buy carrots, potatoes, eggs, milk, cheese, chicken, beef, pork or even Kraft Dinner without burning through one's paycheque. The Prime Minister has blamed this laughably on the war in Ukraine. How much of our cheese, milk, carrots and Kraft Dinner come from Russia or Ukraine? Let me say that it is zero, yet, as any common-sense Saskatchewan person can tell us, Canada produces and manufactures our own food.

What does affect the domestic price of food is when the Canadian farmer must suddenly start paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in carbon taxes to fuel his farm equipment, keep the greenhouses hot, and move the manufacturing line and processing facilities. These costs get passed on to the retailer. The retailer, of course, has their own carbon taxes to pay on the electricity to keep the lights on and keep the fridges and freezers cold while absorbing whatever extra carbon tax costs were incurred by the transport trucks delivering the food to that retailer. All those taxes get added up and passed on to the consumer. That is how the carbon tax is making everything more expensive. That is inflation, plain and simple.

There is a second myth to dispel about the carbon tax. The Prime Minister goes around touting his so-called carbon rebate cheques as his new Marxist wealth redistribution project. He tells Canadians to not worry about paying carbon taxes because he will just give it back to them with a quarterly cheque. Is that true? Like everything the Prime Minister says and does, it may seem true in his world, but in the real world, he is absolutely wrong.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer, an independent officer of Parliament who is not beholden to any political party, looked at the Prime Minister's claims and produced a very detailed report. Using the Prime Minister's own figures and math, he went across Canada and examined how much everyone pays in carbon tax and how much they get back in these so-called rebates.

In my home province of Saskatchewan, this year the Liberals will collect an average of $2,618 from every family, but the Liberals will only rebate on average $2,093. That means that each Saskatchewan family will lose $525. Only in the Prime Minister's head does losing over $500 mean that someone is coming out ahead. Within five years, as the carbon tax quadruples, that net loss would be well over $1,700 per year for each family. It is clear that only in the alternative reality the Prime Minister lives in does a loss of $1,700 every year turn out to be a win.

As such, myth one is that the carbon tax does not make everything more expensive, but we know that it does exactly that. Myth two is that families get the carbon tax back, when the truth is they do not, leaving each family $500 in the hole. The third myth is that the NDP is somehow not to blame for the Prime Minister's brazen disregard for the Canadian public every time he raises the carbon tax.

The fact is that the coalition government agreement the NDP and Liberals struck is akin to one of the greatest heists ever committed against the Canadian taxpayer. Did the Prime Minister put the gun to the taxpayers and pull the trigger? He absolutely did, but it was the NDP that loaded the gun, kept the getaway vehicle idling when the dirty work was being done and then put its foot on the accelerator to make sure the Liberals got a clean getaway.

Myth number four is that the home heating oil exemption was not meant to help Liberal MPs in the Maritimes. The truth is that they created this exemption so people heating their homes in Atlantic Canada did not have to pay carbon tax. I can clearly see that in the announcement filled with all the Liberal Maritime MPs.

When Saskatchewan thought this type of exemption should also apply to people heating their homes in our frigid province, what did the Prime Minister do instead? If I turn to page 408 in annex 3 of the budget, it would give the Liberals the legal authority to prosecute the Saskatchewan government for not collecting the carbon tax on natural gas. As such, exempting home heating in Atlantic Canada is A-okay for the Liberals. Exempting home heating in Saskatchewan would be a criminal act, so obviously this shows the lengths to which the Prime Minister is willing to go to favour one region of Canada over another.

Ultimately, as a member of Parliament, I must make a decision on how I will be voting on the budget. How do I represent the interests of the people of Saskatoon West? Do I vote in favour of higher taxes, out-of-control spending, massive inflationary debt payments and no end in sight? Many folks in my riding email me, almost on a daily basis, imploring me to stop doing these very things.

They are very concerned that our activist Prime Minister is breaking Canada. They see the crime, chaos and destruction are on our streets. They feel the pinch of higher grocery prices and higher taxes. As such, do I vote against another wasteful budget, a budget that is meant to harm Canadians, a budget that raises their taxes and increases inflation?

I am a Conservative, and I believe in common sense. I am voting no to the budget. I am voting non-confidence in the NDP-Liberal government, and I am voting in favour of us having a carbon tax election as soon as possible.

Let us bring it home.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Mr. Speaker, after nine years and eight consecutive deficit budgets, the Prime Minister has doubled the debt, adding more to our national debt than all other prime ministers combined. Housing costs have doubled under his watch and, now, two million Canadians are forced to visit their local food banks in a single month. That is twice the population of Nova Scotia. With the budget, we can see another $50 billion of inflationary spending. The budget and the Prime Minister are simply not worth the cost. I will be voting no confidence.

Common-sense Conservatives have a plan to axe the tax, build the home, fix the budget and, yes, stop the crime. Since he became the Prime Minister, the wealthiest .01% of Canadians have been living lavishly, receiving major subsidies from their corporations that are bigger than ever in the history of our country and huge loan guarantees that prevent them from losing money on bad investments.

Who foots the bill for the out-of-control Prime Minister? The hard-working taxpayers. Contractors like those from GC Strategies are among the .01% thanks to the generous gifts from the NDP-Liberal government. Who else is in that .01%? The Prime Minister himself. As a matter of fact, he is considered one of the world's wealthiest politicians. Yet, over the past nine years, Canada's personal income growth has fallen behind that of other G7 nations. Today, average Canadian families and seniors are forced to choose between paying their mortgage and putting food on their table.

Let me make one thing clear. Conservatives are not against spending. We are against wasteful spending, which the NDP-Liberal government excels at. Conservatives will support programs that deliver proven positive outcomes. Take the government's dental care program, for instance. Who will it really help? Is it helping seniors? No. Did the government consult with the Canadian Dental Association before announcing it? No. The result is a program rushed out the door in a desperate attempt to buy votes with no real thought or consultation behind it.

I have heard from many dentists and one thing is clear. These dentists care about their patients and have worked tirelessly to build their business, but the Canadian dental care program in its current state will not allow them the same high level of patient care they provide. The proof is in the extremely low sign-up rate by dentists. Canadians have been promised free dental care, but are now upset due to the massive limitations and restrictions imposed by this ill-conceived NDP-Liberal program. Eligible treatments are insufficient for the prevention and maintenance of good oral health. Dentists should be able to make recommendations based on the individual needs of their patients and not the constraints dictated by this government and covered up by their insurance company.

The public is being misled about the scope of coverage and the fees. Most patients will be surprised by out-of-pocket expenses such as copay balances and limitations of service. The burden will fall on dental teams to explain these deficiencies. After analyzing the CDCP benefit grid, most treatments will be reimbursed to the dental team at around 80%. The Liberals claim this is to avoid overburdening the taxpayers. Is that not rich? They awarded Sun Life $747 million to administer this program. Clearly, the Liberal government does not understand the cost of providing quality health care. To be a provider, dentists were told to sign an open-ended, unilateral contract. Who would sign a contract where the details are unclear and unfair?

The Minister of Health has said dentists should just try it if they like it. That does not even make sense. It is an insurance plan, not a pair of gloves. Dentists cannot just try out a plan to see whether it fits. This is neither sensible nor ethical. What happens if they decide not to continue? How can they morally or ethically stop treating a patient based on insurance coverage?

Let us also talk about patient privacy. Accepting the claims processing and payment agreement gives Sun Life rights and access to the entire patient chart. Client consent is obtained as part of member enrolment in the CDCP, meaning that personal health information and dental charts will be readily available to Sun Life and the government.

The plan has little to no thought on how it would work. To sell it as free dental care is nothing more than false advertising and wasteful spending, not unlike the billion-dollar arrive scam app.

I googled the meaning of the word “budget”, and this is what came up: “A budget is a plan you write down to decide how you will spend your money”. That part of the definition the government seems to understand, but it is the next sentence where it fails: “A budget helps you make sure you will have enough money every month. Without a budget, you might run out of money before your next paycheck.”

The NDP-Liberal coalition has spent so much money that more Canadian tax dollars are used to service the debt than are spent on health care. This year, Canada will spend $54.1 billion to service the Prime Minister's debt. That is more money than the government is sending to the provinces for health care. The Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, confirmed that the Prime Minister's $61 billion in new spending is not helpful in bringing inflation down and lowering interest rates.

After nine years, the Prime Minister's budget is just more of the same of what got us into this mess. He did not stop the inflationary deficits that are driving up interest rates. He did not stop endangering our social programs and jobs by adding more and more debt. His government has doubled rent, mortgage payments and down payments. His record deficits have driven interest rates sky-high. Food banks received a record two million visits in a single month last year, with an additional million expected in 2024. He will not stop until common-sense Conservatives start governing with common sense for this country.

The Prime Minister is not worth the cost for any generation. While life has gotten worse for Canadians, the Prime Minister is spending more than ever before. This year's budget includes over $61 billion in new inflationary spending. This would cost the average Canadian family an extra $3,687. Former Liberal Governor of the Bank of Canada David Dodge said that the current budget is the “worst since 1982.” Both the Bank of Canada and former Liberal finance minister John Manley told the Prime Minister that his spending is pressing on the inflationary gas pedal, driving up interest rates.

Struggling families cannot afford higher taxes and more inflationary spending that drives up the cost of everything, keeping interest rates high. That is why common-sense Conservatives sent a letter to the Prime Minister with three demands to fix the budget. First, axe the tax on farmers and food by immediately passing Bill C-234 in its original form. Second, build the homes, not bureaucracy, by requiring cities to permit 15% more homebuilding each year as a condition of receiving federal infrastructure money. Third, cap the spending with a dollar-for-dollar rule to bring down interest rates and inflation. The government must find a dollar in savings for every new dollar of spending. The Prime Minister refuses to listen.

Common-sense Conservatives will not support this budget, and the people of my constituency are just waiting for us to form government and beat the current Liberal government.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to start off by saying it had been predicted that this year's NDP-Liberal budget was likely to be the worst budget since 1982 when the Prime Minister's father was running the government. That prediction was made by the former Liberal-appointed Bank of Canada Governor, David Dodge.

Mr. Dodge was speaking about the budget before he even saw it, but what he already observed was $40 billion in announced new spending. Someone does not have to be a former Bank of Canada governor to realize that doubling down on a failed approach is a bad idea. The proof is out there in the lived experience of real people across our country. Canadians deserve better.

In my speech today, I will highlight a number of reasons the Liberals have failed to respond to the needs of everyday Canadians, including the good people of Westman.

First, the NDP-Liberal budget fails on tax relief for struggling Canadians. At a time when life is costing far more for Westman residents, the Prime Minister's budget does nothing to bring the relief families desperately need. As the cost of gas, groceries and home heating continue to increase, the Liberals have deliberately chosen not only to leave the carbon tax in place, but also to increase it even more, despite the financial hurt Canadians are feeling.

Thanks to the NDP-Liberal coalition, the Prime Minister was able to hike the carbon tax by 23% on April 1, further driving up the cost of everything. The fact is that 70% of Canadians oppose this tax hike, and 70% of the provincial premiers have asked the Prime Minister to stop this painful tax increase. The simplest, fairest thing to do is to axe the carbon tax for everyone, everywhere, for good. That is what Conservatives are working toward.

Instead of siding with Canadians facing an affordability crisis, it was very frustrating to see the NDP and Liberals join forces to save the Prime Minister from a carbon tax election last month. In fact, the parties have voted together 22 times to keep this tax grab in place since 2019. Those who are watching can rest assured that common-sense Conservatives will continue fighting to axe the tax and bring home lower prices for everyone.

Second, the NDP-Liberal budget fails on measures to restore affordability. Under the Liberal government's watch, the cost of rent, mortgage payments and down payments has doubled. The Liberals' record deficits have driven interest rates sky-high. Food banks received a record two million visits in a single month last year, with a million more people expected in 2024.

In my riding, the Samaritan House food bank gave out nearly 36,000 hampers last year, a dramatic increase of 12,000, which was a 50% increase above its normal annual average. This is in line with trends across the whole country as families struggle to make ends meet and put food on the table.

As the Prime Minister and his ideological environment minister keep taxing the farmers who grow the food and the truckers who transport the food, at the end of the day, they are adding to the cost of food for everyday Canadians who buy it. That is why one thing the Liberals could have done to bring tax relief is axe the carbon tax.

Third, the Liberals could have moved to stop inflationary spending. The finance minister green-lighted a deficit of $39.8 billion, which would bring Canada's national debt to a staggering $1.25 trillion. It has been proven time and time again that it is these exact deficits that are driving inflation in Canada and making life more unaffordable for Canadians across our whole country.

The ever-increasing rates of spending in Canada are causing the Bank of Canada to maintain or even raise the interest rate, which is now at 5% versus the 1% of two years ago. These were the worst two years for millions of families who trusted the Liberal Prime Minister when he claimed that interest rates would stay low forever.

That is why Conservatives demanded that budget 2024 include a commitment to cap spending, with a dollar-for-dollar rule, to bring down interest rates and inflation. The government must find a dollar in savings for every dollar of spending, so Canadians no longer see the value of their dollar drop thanks to rising inflation.

The Prime Minister's reckless spending is leaving less money available for health care. This year, Canada will spend a shocking $54.1 billion on interest servicing our national debt, more money than the entire Canada health transfer. Should the NDP-backed Liberal government continue on its spending spree, it would simply mean more money for wealthy bankers and bondholders who own our debt, while less money flows to the doctors and nurses who keep our communities healthy. If we continue to go down this road, the pot of cash that is available for health care in Canada will only continue to get smaller, endangering our rural and remote hospitals, clinics and care homes.

Another failing is the government's approach to housing. In its 2015 platform, the Liberals said they would “conduct an inventory of all available federal lands and buildings that could be repurposed, and make some of these lands available at low cost for affordable housing in communities where there is a pressing need.” That did not happen. Now its 2024 budget is restating that commitment nine years later.

Under the Liberal government, Canada is building fewer homes than we did in the mid-1970s when we had half the population, making housing more expensive for everyone. Reannouncing old pledges will not help to build the 5.8 million homes that are needed to restore housing affordability for Canadians. Even in Brandon, the rent of a modest unit has risen from $989 to $1,242, an increase of more than $250 a month, not to mention the rising cost of everything else. A common-sense Conservative approach would build homes, not bureaucracy, by requiring that cities permit 15% more homebuilding each year as a condition for receiving federal infrastructure money.

This budget “falls short for Canadian farmers.” That is a statement we heard from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. Despite a specific Conservative demand to axe the carbon tax on farmers and food by passing Bill C-234 in its original form, no such commitment has been made by the Liberals. Instead of saving farmers $1 billion between now and 2030, which is exactly what passing Bill C-234 in its original form would do, the Liberals continued to ignore farmers. The result is that all Canadians will continue to pay more at the grocery store because higher expenses for farmers lead to higher prices for consumers. Conservatives will keep fighting to bring home lower food prices for all Canadians.

Another failing of the Liberal budget is our growing national debt. The Prime Minister has doubled down on $40 billion of new spending, $2,400 in new government debt and new inflationary spending alone for every Canadian. Not only have the deficit and debt grown at substantial rates, but the interest payments due on the debt continue to grow at skyrocketing rates. In fact, all of the GST Canadians pay this year will be needed to pay for the Liberal government's interest payments on the debt. For the first time in a generation, we are spending more on debt interest than on health care.

I would ask every Canadian watching to remember this. Every time they pay at the cash or close a business transaction, the extra 5% they pay in goods and services tax is all going toward interest on the Prime Minister's debt. After nine years of the Prime Minister, Canada is now spending more money paying off interest on his debt than on Canada health transfer to provinces. Meanwhile, housing prices have doubled and food banks are overwhelmed.

The decline in the Canadian economy since 2019 created by the Liberal Prime Minister means Canadians are now poorer by $4,200 per person. While American GDP per capita growth has grown by 7% since 2019, Canada's has fallen by 2.8%. This is the single-largest underperformance of the Canadian economy in comparison to the United States since 1965. It is long past the time to bring home affordability and restore common sense. Unfortunately, I could not support budget 2024 as it failed on both accounts.

National Strategy to Reduce Food Waste and Combat Food Insecurity

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to the motion to create a national strategy to reduce food waste and combat food insecurity.

I do believe that this motion put forward by the Liberal member is presented with good intentions, but like most of the things that the Liberals have done for the last nine years, the unintended consequences of good intentions would cause more problems than it would solve.

Let us start with the facts. Over 20% of food produced in Canada goes uneaten and is considered wasted. It is also true that many Canadian families are dealing with critical levels of food insecurity. The government thinks that reducing food waste is the solution for the problem of food insecurity. That is where, of course, the narrative falls apart. It is not food waste that is causing spiralling food prices. Canadians, by and large, could afford to put food on the table just nine short years ago.

In a single month last year, there were two million visits to food banks in Canada. Today, food banks are expecting to see a million more people use their facilities on top of last year's record high, and a third of food banks say they will have to turn hungry Canadians away.

It is incredibly saddening that the Liberal government has put parents in such a precarious position that we now seem to need a national school food program in order to make sure that children have food to eat, when their parents used to be able to afford to buy it for them.

Food waste is not necessarily the most pressing issue. The reason that we are even speaking to this motion today is due to the inflationary spending and outrageous agricultural policies that have been implemented by a government that clearly does not understand the industry. The result of these disastrous policies is that the average Canadian family will have to pay up to $700 more in food in 2024 than it did just last year in 2023. That is just one year's worth of inflationary increases.

After nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, the price of beef is up 30%; chicken, 34%; rice, 30%; eggs, 38%; apples, 39%; butter, 45%; tomatoes, 63%; fish, 28%; lettuce, 48%; flour, 25%; potatoes, 60%; and baby formula is up 27%. I could continue, but I think Canadians who are watching get the point. It turns out that there are consequences to taxing our farmers, truckers and grocers.

What are the examples of some of these disastrous policies? A prime example, of course, is the carbon tax. This tax has done little for the environment, but has driven up the cost of food, as the cost of carbon pricing compounds through the supply chain with every single transaction that the food system endures.

Conservatives understand the cost borne by our agricultural sector. That is why my colleague from Huron—Bruce introduced Bill C-234 to expand carbon tax exemptions, of course, for our struggling farmers and the agricultural sector. The bill would have saved $978 million by removing the carbon tax on natural gas and propane for drying grain, as well as heating and cooling barns, greenhouses and other structures. That is $1 billion that has to be added into the price of food for Canadians.

Recently, the Liberal Party-aligned senators masquerading as independents gutted most of the exemptions from Bill C-234. With Liberals proposing a 30% fertilizer emissions reduction target on top of this, which they claim is voluntary, even though it is not, it is no wonder that Canadian farmers clearly mistrust the current government.

Ironically enough, the Liberal government laments the issue of food waste, when one of their own misguided policies has actually exacerbated the problem. In 2022, they put a self-imposed ban on P.E.I. potatoes being exported to the United States. In doing so, the government is mis-characterizing the entire province of P.E.I. as being infested with potato warts. During this incident, the government spent $28 million to destroy almost 300 million pounds of potatoes, and that sounds like fairly significant food waste to me. Maybe the government should indict itself as part of this new strategy.

If the past is any indicator of the future, then it seems that the Liberals have not yet learned from their failures in the realm of agriculture. Not long ago, the government indicated that it was looking at a P2 plastic ban as part of its commitment to move toward zero plastic waste. This policy seeks to ban plastic non-compostable price-lookup stickers and plastic packaging for fresh produce.

Although the government has paraded this plastics ban as an environmental initiative, a report commissioned by the Canadian Produce and Marketing Association and produced by Deloitte has found that this simply is not the case. They concluded that the P2 plastics ban could increase greenhouse gas emissions by 50% or 22 million metric tons of CO2. Deloitte has also found that it fails at reducing waste.

Alternatives to plastic packaging have consistently failed to meet modified atmosphere requirements. They also fail to meet the standard for food-borne illnesses. It has been estimated the reduction in shelf life engendered by the loss of these plastic products could increase fresh produce waste by more than 50%. This would constitute a loss of more than one million tons of fresh produce every year. Woke packaging laws are creating food waste.

Finally, it has been reported that the loss of these products could raise the cost of food by 35% and could reduce the availability of fresh produce by 50%. This would cost our industry $5.6 billion, and the cost would, of course, be borne directly by the consumer. These are the same consumers who are already struggling to put food on the table.

Furthermore, the lower consumption of fresh produce would have a trickle-down effect, costing roughly a billion dollars a year to our health care system. This increased cost would be borne disproportionately in rural and remote regions of Canada, which are already struggling with the increased cost of shipping.

I would now like to delineate what this new national strategy to reduce food waste and combat insecurity would actually do and why we actually do not need it. It calls for strategy to “establish of a national food waste hierarchy,” which sounds like a lot of bureaucracy to me, as well as to “align municipal and provincial regulations concerning food waste reduction and food donations”. We already have many organizations across the country doing their own thing with their own initiatives. They do not need any further direction, especially from Ottawa.

The national strategy would “lead efforts to reduce the adverse environmental impact of unused food resources, establish protocols and partnerships to facilitate food redistribution and rescue efforts, identify policy and fiscal incentives to reduce food waste”. It sounds like it would be creating a lot of jobs for bureaucrats, but I am not sure we would actually be putting more affordable food on tables for Canadians. We can see what what a list of good intentions looks like, but it is actually not necessary in any way, shape or form.

To us Conservatives, this reads as an excuse to expand the bureaucracy. Little emphasis is being put on doing work to solve the issue, but it would create more administrative positions and more government. The government has already grown by over 50% since 2015. Inflationary pressure is putting pressure on the economy and interest rates, and driving up the cost of food even more.

The Liberal government has already spent $20 million toward this initiative under its food waste reduction challenge in 2020, and the industry is making rapid strides in reducing food waste on its own. If the Liberals wanted a ready-made strategy without spending any more money, they could adopt the National Zero Waste Council's report, entitled “A Food Loss and Waste Strategy for Canada,” referencing its work as a national strategy.

I would like to conclude by stating that a national strategy to reduce food waste and combat food insecurity is not needed at the federal level. The issue of food insecurity can be placed squarely on the shoulders of the government and its ideologically motivated policies, and it has learned nothing from the previous mistakes it has made.

Imagine being a government that has mismanaged so much of the economy and the cost of living that salvation somehow lies in feeding food that is destined for the waste stream to millions of now hungry Canadians.

One cannot be the solution when one is the problem, and the NDP-Liberal government is simply not worth the cost. It is time for a Conservative government that will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.

Report Stage

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise, as always, to speak in the House. Tonight, we are talking about the fall economic statement. Yes, members heard me right. We are talking about the economic statement from fall 2023.

It is worth pointing out that the Liberals have an arrangement with the NDP to support them, so they actually have a majority. How badly does one have to mismanage the House schedule to not have finished passing the fall economic statement by the time one actually has introduced a new budget in 2024?

It is what it is. The reality is that it does not matter which budget or economic statement the Liberals bring forward, because their elements are all the same. The first thing that one will see in every budget or economic statement that comes from the Liberals is huge government overspending, a huge deficit.

The fall economic statement did not disappoint in that respect. We see, again, that they continue to pour deficit spending on the inflationary fire. The Governor of the Bank of Canada has said that this makes it very difficult for him to lower interest rates, something that is hurting Canadians. We know that affordability is an issue, and this large deficit spending is just not helpful.

The second feature and benefit that one can always see in an economic statement or a budget from the Liberals is increased taxes. Once again, we see that they are increasing taxes in the bill.

The other thing one can count on is that there will be all kinds of programs, but the execution of the programs will not actually benefit anybody in the country. Those are really the main elements in the fall economic statement.

Interestingly, I have a new intern in my office. She is 20. She is very interested in getting involved in the political process. I gave her an exercise to go and write a speech about the budget. Without any of the usual talking points or anything, this is what she wrote, and I think it applies, to illustrate my point, equally well to the fall economic statement.

She wrote, “After nine years of this Prime Minister and this Liberal-NDP government, Canadians are worse off than ever. Housing costs have doubled, interest rates have skyrocketed, and food banks can't keep up with the demand. Instead of helping Canadians, this new budget proposes billions of dollars in inflationary spending...which will only increase the cost of living and make life harder for Canadians!

“To briefly outline some of the main aspects of the budget, this coalition government promises to create economic prosperity within Canada, as well as building more homes and making them affordable. However, these promises are not new. Rather, they are almost identical to the promises made over the past nine years, promises that the Liberals failed to deliver time and time again. It seems this Liberal government believes that if they try the same thing over and over, it will lead to different results. That's the definition of insanity.”

That is what a 20-year-old thinks about the budgets and the economic statements that the Liberals are bringing forward. It is no wonder, because, in 2015, when I got elected, the Liberals promised to make housing more affordable. They have promised it and promised it; here we are, nine years up the road, and they are still promising to make housing more affordable.

The reality is that housing costs, mortgages, rents and down payments have doubled; the average Canadian is now spending 61% of their disposable income on housing. The Liberals have not made housing more affordable, and I do not see anything in the economic statement that is going to do the trick.

In fact, what I would say is that some of the ideas in here are unbelievable. They talk about leveraging the Infrastructure Bank to build housing. The Infrastructure Bank took $35 billion from municipalities, money that was supposed to build infrastructure in those municipalities, and put it into this bank with the idea that they would be able to attract private investment and leverage money to build projects. They loaded up with all the Liberal insider friends to run the thing and never built any projects.

Here we are, five years up the road, and now they think they are going to use that bank, which attracted no private investment, to build houses. It is ludicrous. It is not going to happen.

What I would say is that the Liberals have taken some of our Conservative leader's good ideas and they have put them in here. Taking the GST off new houses is one, which is a great idea, and there are a couple of other ideas that our Conservative colleagues had. I see a number of ideas from private members' bills that talked about maternity benefits and adoptive parent benefits, things like that, which were adopted in here, so it is good that the Liberals could learn from the good ideas that Conservatives have. Using federal lands and freeing up federal lands to build housing on is another great idea from the Conservatives.

Those are the highlights of the economic update, but one of the titles in the economic update is “Making Life More Affordable”. I already talked about the housing part of it. Let us talk about the rest of it. The Liberals have jacked up the carbon tax, and the carbon tax has driven the cost of everything up. It has added 17¢ a litre to gasoline. It is a multiplier on the increased cost of food. If I think about the Parliamentary Budget Officer, he was saying that every year food prices have increased. The average person is paying $1,400 more for food than they used to pay. I add that to the carbon tax, which, depending on the province one is in could be $1,800 a year, and then I will talk about some of the other things.

I have a staffer who just got her insurance premium update, and it went up $1,000 a year. They said the reason that it was going up was inflation and car theft. Again, it is these Liberal policies that are driving inflation and not addressing the catch and release of criminals who are stealing vehicles. It is unbelievable.

Before the pandemic, 50% of Canadians were within $200 of not being able to pay their bills. With all the things I just quoted, if I add those up, it is an extra $500 a month. Everybody is in the red. The Liberals have taken the middle class and they have turned it into the poor hoping to join back to the middle class. It is unacceptable.

We see that the Liberals, at the same time, have piled on with increased CPP and EI premium taxes, tax increases at a time when Canadians can least afford it, and they intend to quadruple the carbon tax. They also have increased the tax on alcohol and beer. This is something that is an every-year measure without any parliamentary oversight. It was put in a budget a few years ago, and Canadians are feeling the pinch.

Another title in the budget is “Making Groceries More Affordable”. Have the the Liberals been to the grocery store and seen how expensive it is? It is ridiculous. They offer support for Canadians in their energy bills. In addition to the carbon tax, we have brought forward some great ideas like Bill C-234 to take the carbon tax off farmers to make food more affordable, but the government is keeping that from going forward. It has done nothing to help keep food more affordable.

What about supporting small businesses? The government would not let them extend their CEBA loan repayments, even with the hard-pressed small business environment from the pandemic, and now they are getting squeezed with a capital gains tax, even though these small business owners were told that this is how they would accumulate money for their retirement because they do not have pensions as they are entrepreneurs. Now the government has changed the rules, and it has changed them retroactively. Instead of saying going forward it is going to change them, now it is punishing small business owners.

There are all these programs, and I do not have enough time to go into all of them, but the school food program has no food in it. It is provincial jurisdiction, so that is a waste of time. The dental program has no dentists signed up in most of the provinces. In P.E.I., Northwest Territories and Yukon there are none there. If I look, it is 25% or less in some of the other provinces, and people are left with the impression it is going to be free. It is not free. The government only covers 70%. People who cannot afford dental care cannot pay that other 30%, so it failed. That is my conclusion