Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be here in this place representing the good people of Middlesex—London.
As this is my first speech since coming back for my third term as a member of Parliament, I would like to take a moment to express my gratitude to those who helped on my most recent campaign. First and foremost, I thank the people of Middlesex—London for putting their trust in me to be in this place on their behalf. They have sent a clear message to Ottawa that our diverse rural and urban communities want accountability and change in Ottawa. I will not let them down, and I will be that voice of reason for common sense as I work diligently as their representative.
To my amazing campaign team, who worked faithfully, day in and day out, keeping everything running smoothly, I want to thank Jordon Wood, Dalton Holloway, Tony Circelli, Evan Dunnigan, Tayler Fipke, Anna Rood, Yvonne Hundey and Kim Heathcote. I would also like to thank all those folks who volunteered in some way on my campaign. There are way too many to name as there were hundreds of volunteers. It means so much to me to have their support.
I would like to take a second to thank my parents, Theo and Diane Rood; my brother, Jeremy; and my niece, Anna Rood. I am so grateful for their love and support, day in and day out, and for their dedication to my campaign. I want to thank my dad especially for taking the time to make sure that signs were put up in all 3,000 square kilometres of the riding. Everyone loved mom's home-cooked meals and having her in the campaign office. I want to thank Anna for going out in rain, snow and sunshine to knock on all those doors for all those weeks. I want to thank Jeremy for always being there for me for moral support, which is really more like keeping me in line, even though he could not be there because he was out fighting forest fires in Saskatchewan. I thank him for his support.
Now, since the good people of Middlesex—London brought me here to hold the Liberal government to account, let us talk about their atrocious record on food affordability in Canada. This issue has an impact on many families across Middlesex—London, a sensation they feel every single time they step through those automatic doors at the grocery store, the relentless squeeze of food inflation and the cost of living crisis that the Liberal government still refuses to confront honestly.
Back in May, when asked how Canadians could hold him accountable, the Prime Minister said, “Canadians will hold us to account by their experience at the grocery store”. He may regret those words today. Judged by that very measure, he is absolutely failing.
Food inflation is 70% above the Bank of Canada's target. Food prices are up 40% since the Liberals took power. Food bank use in Canada is up by 142% since 2015; the Daily Bread Food Bank expects four million visits to its food banks in 2025. Food inflation numbers released on Tuesday morning show overall inflation at 1.9% year over year in August, but grocery prices are up 3.5%. Meat is up 7.2% and beef is up 12.7% compared to August 2024. That is not a rounding error; that is a kitchen table crisis.
Families are not just making ends meet anymore or just making substitutions; they are actually skipping meals, and it is getting worse. Years of elevated food inflation mean that we are all paying today's higher prices on top of last year's increases. It is no wonder that Canadians feel as though the ground is shifting below them in the cereal aisle.
Let us be clear about the scale of hardship. In southwestern Ontario, local food banks repeatedly warn that it is tough to keep shelves stocked year-round as the demand grows. In Middlesex—London, one in four families is food insecure, which means they do not know where their next meal is going to come from. This is not and should not become normal in a country as blessed as Canada. When the government needs to step in to help feed people and their families, government policy is failing. Canadians see the disconnect.
Let us walk through how we actually got here. First, there are policy mistakes. The government slapped countertariffs on U.S. imports last spring, going far beyond steel and autos, and hit a long list of grocery items. Food economists warned that this would raise prices in the very aisles where Canadians were already hurting: coffee, tea, pasta, spices, nuts and citrus. Sure enough, we saw renewed pressure in July and August.
Then on May 7, after last spring's election campaign, the government quietly paused many of those countertariffs. There was no fanfare, no accountability, but this was a tacit admission that it had made a bad problem worse.
Second, there is volatile tinkering. The so-called GST holiday on groceries created chaos in pricing systems, compliance headaches and distortions across categories. Since January, food inflation has surged from -0.6% to 3.8%. Liberals claim this was inevitable, but federal meddling did not steady the ship; it rocked it.
Third, there are the structural costs the Liberals keep piling on. We can ask any grower, trucker, small processor or independent grocer about their biggest upward pressures. They are fuel costs, carbon taxes on the supply chain, red tape, slow approvals and a broken competition landscape that concentrates power in the hands of a few dominant retailers. When Ottawa pretends these inputs do not matter, it is pretending families will not see it reflected on their receipts at the grocery store, so let us dig into some numbers that Canadians are living with.
This is what the people in Middlesex—London are seeing at the checkout: beef top sirloin up 33%; canned soup up 26%, grapes up 24%, coffee up 22%, sugar up 20%, canned tuna up 19%, apples up 14%, vegetable oil up 13% and chicken up 11%. These are not luxury goods; these are staples. The average family of four is projected to spend almost $17,000 on food this year. That is over $800 more than last year. Sixty-one per cent of Canadians worry that they will not be able to afford groceries six months from now, and that fear is even higher among young adults and modest-income families. These are not abstract figures; they describe the family in the minivan beside us in the parking lot.
In Middlesex—London, local headlines have reported crowded food bank drives, community cupboards running at capacity and frontline volunteers stretched thin. I have met with many pantry coordinators who say demand spikes high right before rent is due or when the hydro bill lands, because people simply run out. When a mother tells us she has learned to ration fruit for her kids, we do not forget it. Across Canada, the story is the same.
Because I am a Conservative, I am going to talk about supply, not just the symptoms. I grew up on a family farm. I still run an operation today. I have said it many times before, and I will say it again: no farms, no food. If we do not support Canadian farmers, we will have less food and higher prices, full stop. The Liberals' poor policies on the carbon tax, fertilizer tariffs, carbon tax 2, the clean fuel standards, plastic packaging bans and red tape have punished farm families working on the thinnest of margins. The Liberals have piled costs onto producers, haulers and processors and then acted shocked when prices rise at the till. That is not economics; that is denial.
Let me also debunk a fashionable fallacy I keep hearing in Ottawa, that banning modern food packaging and plastics will magically make life cheaper and greener. Well, it will not. In committee rooms and on plant floors across Ontario, I have seen how safe, modern packaging prevents waste, extends shelf life and keeps costs lower for consumers. We import more than 80% of our fresh fruit and vegetables. Long-haul supply chains need reliable packaging to preserve the quality and safety of the food. When activists force rushed bans or label essential materials as toxic, they do not make food cheaper; they make it more expensive and more likely to spoil. That is not a theory; it is what the industry has warned, and it is what common sense tells us.
For any Liberal who disagrees, I will happily give any of them a book to read by a leading expert in the field, Chris DeArmitt. He has reviewed over 4,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies on plastic, and I agree with him that “The problem is clearly not with plastic itself, but with the...behaviour of some humans who [litter].”
In the real world, plastic films and trays extend shelf life, cut spoilage and keep food safer through transport and storage. This is critical in Canada. As DeArmitt says, smart packaging isn't the villain; it is the reason your lettuce is not soup by Tuesday. By banning plastics or replacing them with heavier, leakier alternatives, we do not get greener; we get more waste and more emissions. Treating plastics as toxic would add 50% more waste at retail and up to 150% across the full supply chain, and would add a further 22.1 million tonnes of GHGs tied to food waste, over 8% of national emissions. The bottom line is simple: Banning plastics would not solve the problem; it would create more problems.
The current Liberals have continued Trudeau's legacy by holding a disastrous record on making Canadians poorer and food more expensive. Current Liberal spending and deficits today are only getting worse. Canadians deserve better, and we will deliver. Effective policy will focus on better design, recycling and responsible use, not on swapping materials for food to spoil faster, break in transit or drive higher transportation emissions per kilogram of product delivered.
If we care about climate and affordability, smart plastic packaging is part of the solution, not the scapegoat. Conservatives call on the Prime Minister to stop taxing food, by eliminating the industrial carbon tax on fertilizer and farm equipment; the inflationary money-printing deficits; carbon tax 2, the so-called clean fuel standard; and the food packaging plastics ban, packaging requirements and the plastics registry that will drive up both costs and waste.
