Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague for Huron—Bruce will be up shortly to talk to his private member's bill, which is an important private member's bill, and I intend to highlight it through my speech.
It is always an honour to rise in the House and address the concerns of my constituents of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound.
When I first spoke to Bill C-8 at second reading, I talked about the cost of living and inflation, which is a concern that I am hearing about every day from my constituents. They are worried about these record highs in inflation. It has been over 30 years since we have had inflation this high. It is at almost 6%. They are worried about their ability to live with that affordability question, and it does impact rural Canada much more than the rest of Canada, especially our farmers.
I will focus part of my interjection on part 1 of the bill, which talks about the amendments to income tax and income tax regulations, but I will speak specifically to the paragraphs that talk about the new refundable tax credit for eligible businesses and qualifying ventilation expenses made to improve air quality, as well as the second bit on the new refundable tax credit to return fuel charge proceeds to farming businesses in backstop jurisdictions.
Before I do that, I want to again highlight the cost of servicing the incredible amount of spending and debt that we now have as a country. The national debt has doubled in the last six years from about $600 billion to $1.2 trillion. To service that debt is over $24 billion, and that is before interest rates go up. As I mentioned in previous speeches, that is more than the budget for our Canadian Armed Forces. Hopefully, we will, as the government has indicated, see some changes in that budget based on the unfortunate circumstance in Ukraine.
However, the problem with servicing such incredible debt is that it actually puts those social programs that so many Canadians depend upon at risk. As the PBO has outlined, much of the stimulus spending that is included in Bill C-8, approximately $71 billion, is not necessary. We are in a cost-of-living crisis, and we need to make decisions to change that. As has been spoken about before, groceries alone are going up over $1,000. Seniors in this country cannot afford that, and low-income Canadians cannot afford that. All of these products and produce are available here in Canada.
I want to go back to the legislation, specifically to the new refundable tax credit for eligible and qualifying businesses for ventilation expenses made to improve air quality. I brought this up before the bill went to committee and talked about the importance of trying to understand why the government chose the date of September 1, 2021, for businesses to qualify for that credit. As I highlighted before, I have businesses in my area that helped deal with, fight and combat the COVID pandemic by turning their facilities into field hospitals, but while they showed that initiative, and they put out thousands of dollars to make those changes to get ahead of the curve at the time, they do not qualify.
However, considering we are here debating the bill, I do not see the government making those changes, because the Liberals did not make those changes at committee. I would ask why the government is penalizing those small businesses and companies across Canada that did step up to fight COVID-19 and made the necessary changes to make Canadians safer. Why is the government rationalizing and not supporting that? My cynical response is that, if we look at September 1, 2021, I wonder what it was tied to, considering when we had the election this past fall.
The next piece I want to get to is around the Liberal carbon tax, but before I get to that, I want to talk about the green bond framework and the clean jobs training centre, with the caveat that the second one is not clarified yet as I brought it up at committee yesterday. However, my question is this: Why has nuclear energy been excluded from the green bond framework? It is key, and all Canadians should know that nuclear is an essential and important part of getting to a carbon-neutral economy and dealing with climate change.
It is the same thing with the clean jobs training centre. Right now it is not included in supports for getting workers skills training so they can transition to the nuclear industry and we can help get people into jobs that will help reduce our carbon footprint.
I am going to have difficulty getting through my full 10 minutes before I am cut off, but I want to talk about the refundable tax credit and what it would mean to farming businesses. I am actually optimistic that this aspect could provide some support to our agriculture industry and our farmers, especially those who are actively engaged in the management of the day-to-day activities of earning farming income or incurring farming expenses of $25,000 or more. This is a policy that I think would help the farmers in Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound.
I will never stop underlining the importance of our farmers and the essential food they put on the table for not only Canadians, but people around the world. This has been further exacerbated in the last couple months with the war in Ukraine and Russia's terrible actions. Ukraine is the essential breadbasket for Europe, and without food coming out of Ukraine, it is that much more important that we are supporting our Canadian farmers and not making life more expensive for them, because all people around the globe are going to depend upon Canadian agriculture and food. The issue is that, although I am somewhat optimistic and happy to see this refundable tax credit included in Bill C-8, it is only a partial step in the direction we need to go.
In the last Parliament, the Conservatives introduced a private member's bill, which was passed before the House rose, to remove the Liberal carbon tax from our farmers. Unfortunately, because of the unnecessary election last summer called by the Prime Minister, that bill died in the Senate before it could be passed. We need to get that bill passed, along with the new bill of my hon. colleague from Huron—Bruce, which I know will be discussed shortly, because we need to cut the carbon tax on natural gas and propane for our grain dryers and livestock barns. Our farmers are price-takers, not price-makers, and nothing included in Bill C-8 would actually take us to the necessary level. The Liberal plan does not recognize the important role our farmers play in reducing the carbon footprint through carbon sequestration and more in this country.
I will sum up by saying that although there are some aspects in Bill C-8 that I can support, in large part it is not good enough and would actually increase spending for Canadians. I am looking forward to hearing the forthcoming debate on Bill C-234 from the hon. member for Huron—Bruce.
