Mr. Speaker, welcome to the chair.
It is an honour for me to get up to talk about affordability on behalf of the constituents of Skeena—Bulkley Valley, specifically with respect to Bill C-38, the Canadian fuel affordability act.
By the way, I am sharing my time with a member forFort McMurray—Cold Lake.
The government has framed Bill C-38 as a collaboration among the parties and members within the House, which is not entirely accurate, because long before I came here, the leader of the Conservative Party, and the Conservatives as well, were talking about affordability and the pressures Canadians were under. In fact, the leader of the Conservative Party was actually pushing for this tax break at the pumps long before I came along, specifically through the campaign.
It has just dawned on the Liberals this past year that, yes, maybe Canadians are having a tough time and that maybe they should save them some money at the gas pumps. Then they had the revelation that affordability has not gotten better in Canada but has gotten worse, and that they should extend the tax break to help Canadians. That was a Conservative idea, among many other Conservative ideas that the Liberals took.
We applauded the idea of getting rid of the carbon tax, because that was a Conservative idea. Then the Liberals said they were taking away only the consumer carbon tax and keeping the industrial carbon tax, but that we should not worry as it is not going to affect affordability. Anybody will tell us that any kind of business that gets additional expenses, including taxes, will not absorb it. They eventually pass it on to the consumer.
I agree there are a lot of different components that add to inflation and the cost of living. This is just one small component. Therefore, if anything, while I do applaud this measure because it is a Conservative measure, I will be asking the government to take more of our Conservative ideas to save Canadians money, not just at the pump but also to deliver the promise of actually making groceries affordable so we have something, as the Prime Minister requested, to judge him on: the prices at the grocery store. Overall, this one measure is not going to fix affordability, but it would help. It is assistance for families and especially for our young people when fuelling up at the gas pumps.
I also agree with the members of the Liberal government who said that feeding children in schools is not a new initiative. My own band, for instance, started doing that not only for children in schools but also for seniors, because we had own-source revenue by engaging the economy. It is not new, but having to feed children in schools is at record levels in Canada, a first world country.
Record levels of people are visiting food banks in Canada in a single month, over two million, of which approximately 30% are children. Given where I come from, I can understand that. I understand the hardship and heartbreak of a middle-class family. One in five of the people who are visiting a food bank has a job. This is what I noticed as an MLA in Victoria, when I used to walk to work. I walked past the food bank. Once a week it would have a food distribution. Slowly I started seeing minivans parking outside and people eating the food they had taken from the food bank. It was hard to ignore.
This affordability issue is not what it was 20 years ago. The middle class is now affected. They are now struggling to the point where even our young, educated professionals are looking to leave Canada because of the cost of living.
There is a lack of opportunity. There are no projects getting approved. Nothing is moving in Canada. In terms of our young people and our future, I do not know about the rest of the people here, but where I come from, we always looked to see what the future of our country is going to be, what our province is going to be, what our region is going to be and what our community is going to be, for the benefit of ourselves and, more importantly, for the benefit of our kids and our grandkids, especially in a place like Canada.
What was the Liberal proposal at a convention? It was for those young people to try to find a better life elsewhere, abroad, maybe in the United States. The proposal was to think about a $500,000 exit tax. If they cannot afford life as it is in Canada, how are they going to afford $500,000 to leave Canada? That is cruel. It is not investing in the future. How can we invest in the future when we are not looking at how Canadians are struggling?
The Liberals are praising their dental plan and are asking how come the Conservatives keep criticizing it. When I go back to my riding, seniors approach me and tell me how they do not qualify. They make too much money under their pension. I actually stopped a senior citizen in Kitimat, who was shopping. She had one item in her cart. It was bread at 50% off because it was old bread. She did not even go to the store for bread. She goes there regularly for the opportunity to find something on sale. She had one item.
There are a lot more measures the Conservatives have proposed that the Liberal government should entertain and that should pass. The four or five proposals that the Liberals borrowed from the Conservatives and implemented in the last campaign were a good sign that the Liberals are finally waking up to how Canadians are struggling. The suspension of the fuel tax is one small measure that can help, but it is not going to be enough.
We agree that there are global situations that are making this situation worse, things that we cannot control, but there are things in Canada that we can control, including what we are talking about here today: extending the fuel tax break. The government could stop the inflationary borrowing and budgets that are being proposed. It could stop some of the projects that will increase inflation, such as the $90-billion Alto high-speed rail project. That is $90 billion that we do not have.
This is a great announcement, but it is certainly not enough. Will it affect affordability, especially for people who do not even have cars? This just keeps piling up. As we go through the debate, and I am sure a lot of members can see this, costs are continuing to go up, based on the Liberal government's own debates and based on global pressures. Can the government focus on affordability for Canadians? Within our own circle of what is Canada, can we focus on things we can do here now to help, such as what the Conservatives have been talking about since long before I got here?
We will continue to fight for affordability for Canadians, fight for young people and fight for a better Canada, but the Liberal government has to take more of the direction that is coming from this side, not just the four or five ideas it has taken from the Conservatives over the last year.
