Madam Speaker, in June I asked the Prime Minister if he understood the connection between the cost of energy and the price of food. In response, the Minister of Agriculture bragged about how hard the government was working to spread manure. As a long-serving member, I have heard some cow pies for answers in the House before, but never literally.
It should worry Canadians that, when pressed on food prices, this tired government can only answer with accomplishments on bovine excrement. It is sad to see these ministers forced to utter bull dung responses on behalf of a distracted, petulant, pouty Prime Minister. Unfortunately, for Canadians, the carbon tax was just a first blow in the Liberal Party's war on affordable food.
Canadians understand that it is the official policy of the Liberal Party to make energy more expensive. Now, it is officially in favour of making food more expensive. New food packaging regulations are going to reduce competition and drive up prices even higher. New food labelling regulations will make food more expensive, and now the Prime Minister is threatening to impose a new tax on grocery stores. Are our Liberal colleagues getting high on their own safe supply? Was the air cut off in the Liberal caucus room last week? That might explain why Liberals think a new tax on grocery stores would reduce food prices.
These Liberals claim that by taxing carbon, we will get less carbon. After all, they have seen that putting a tax on news links shared on social media results in news links disappearing. Now the Prime Minister wants to put on NDP orange face and join the socialists in bullying grocery chain stores. This type of far left, radical populism was fashionable in places like Venezuela and Argentina, until the day the consequences became clear. For many Canadians, that day has already arrived.
After eight years under this radical, far-left gang, life has become unaffordable for millions. The price of a house has doubled. The cost to rent has doubled. Food bank usage is at an all-time high. Deaths of despair, whether from drug overdoses or state-sponsored suicide, are upsetting all-time records. This government's radical ideology is killing Canadians, and the Liberals' only solution is more of the same: more taxes, more bureaucrats, more regulations, more red tape and, if the Minister of Agriculture is to be believed, more cow manure.
Once upon a time, this country had powerful ministers of agriculture. They were often farmers with noses for BS. They would have seen it as their duty to stop radical environment ministers from pushing policies to make food more expensive. Instead, the last ag minister led the charge to make fertilizer more expensive. They just do not get it. It takes energy to manufacture fertilizer. It takes energy to ship fertilizer to the farmers. It takes energy to spread fertilizer. It takes energy to harvest crops. It takes energy to ship crops to processors. It takes energy to process crops into food. It takes energy to ship the food to stores.
The official policy of the Liberal Party is to increase the cost of energy. Now, it has an official policy to make food packaging more expensive. Yet these Liberals deny that their own policies are working exactly as intended. When will they come clean with Canadians about their policy to make life unaffordable?