Thank you, Chair.
I have a motion that I would like to move:
Given that,
(a) 40% of Western University students are experiencing food insecurity and require assistance;
(b) The Western University Student Council’s food center reports a 600% year-to-year increase in Western students requiring their assistance;
(c) The Liberal Government’s 23% carbon tax increase will make food more expensive for students at Western and across Canada;
And in order to help students feed themselves, the committee call on the Liberal Prime Minister to immediately cancel his 23% carbon tax increase and report this recommendation to the House.
Chair, in the testimony that we heard today from many university groups, they talked about how Ph.D.s and others people who are involved in Canada's research enterprise were leaving the country. I do think it is incumbent upon us as a committee, when we're tasked over and over again with looking at funding recommendations related to students involved in research in Canada's universities, to admit the fact that the inflationary pressure on Canadian students is huge.
The genesis of this motion came from a story about the Western University Students' Council food centre reporting a 600% year-to-year increase. Since the story came out, it has been corrected. It's actually 40% of all Canadian students who are experiencing food insecurity.
A lot of that is attributed to increased housing costs, but also increased food costs. On the increased cost of food, we've heard many stories in the House of Commons and in various committees about how agricultural producers' costs of production have increased significantly.
What happens is that food costs increase because of the carbon tax on grain drying, for example. We also heard about the mushroom farmer here in the south end of town. The carbon tax increases the cost of food, and then there are fuel surcharges and whatnot, so it costs more to get the food to the grocery store. Then the grocery store has to pay carbon tax on keeping the heat and the lights on. Increasing the cost at this point in time is really problematic for food insecurity. That is justification number one.
One of the other points that I want to make for the committee is that the carbon tax isn't working. Recent reports have shown that Canada is still going to miss its 2030 emissions target by over 50%.
There are some other interesting stats that don't really get talked about, such as that 70% of Canadians are worried about climate change, myself included, but support for keeping the Prime Minister's carbon tax policy registers with only 18% of Canadians. I think the reason for that delta is that they understand that in Canada there aren't substitute goods for high-carbon products. What's happening is that we have this carbon tax increasing and increasing, which is supposed to transition consumer choices to lower-carbon goods and services, but those goods and services don't exist.
We haven't seen major transit infrastructure projects built. I have one in my city for which the funding was allocated in 2015, and it hasn't been built. We aren't seeing major investments or build-out in Canada's electricity grid. We're seeing the electricity grid in my province, for example, burn out, and people driving electric cars are being told not to plug in their cars on cold days in winter.
This is not to say that we shouldn't be looking for solutions to climate change. That's absolutely necessary, but all of the evidence shows that, as Canada is a cold, natural resource-based economy and we have to drive, the carbon tax as it's structured by the Liberals is not actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, it is creating food insecurity for students and, in turn, creating problems for Canada's research enterprise, and it is certainly a pressure on grocery prices, so increasing it right now would not be great for Canada.
Mr. Chair, I do want to draw your attention to the fact that people will say, “Oh, well, there's a rebate with the carbon tax.” The Parliamentary Budget Officer has actually done a significant analysis on the carbon tax. In Ontario, as of this year, the carbon tax still costs an average Ontario family $500, and that cost is scheduled to triple or quadruple by 2030, so I don't understand where a student right now, who already has to go to the food bank, can come up with this extra money.
If it's not working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, if it's causing food insecurity, if the rebates aren't covering the cost of the carbon tax, and everybody knows it, why would we keep it?
That's a question that you don't have to take my word for or the word of literally millions of Canadians who have shown through polling that this tax is highly unpopular. You can also look at Liberal premiers across the country and Liberal opposition leaders. I'll note that, in Ontario, the Liberal opposition leader herself has voiced opposition to the carbon tax. The Liberal premier of Newfoundland has voiced opposition. NDP leadership candidates in Alberta have voiced opposition to the carbon tax. Why? It's a policy that doesn't work. It makes life more expensive.
The last thing I'll say, Chair, is that I do believe that the climate emergency needs to be addressed with policy that works, and if the Liberals and the NDP continue a dogmatic adherence to a policy that is not reducing Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, while further driving up the price of goods and, at the same time, in the context of this motion, driving Canada's talent out of Canada, we're never going to be able to address greenhouse gas emissions reductions. That dogmatic adherence to a policy that does not work is highly problematic.
Again, I would hope that colleagues on this committee would understand that they have tried this out, and it's clearly not working. It's clearly detrimental to folks across the country, and it's time to go back to the drawing board. Going back to the drawing board means getting rid of this tax and, at the very least, in the meantime ensuring that the increase that is scheduled to happen on April 1 doesn't happen—if for nobody else, then for the students at Western University.
Thank you.