Bill C-4

Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Act

An Act respecting certain affordability measures for Canadians and another measure

Part 1 amends the Income Tax Act to reduce the marginal personal income tax rate on the lowest tax bracket to 14.5% for the 2025 taxation year and to 14% for the 2026 and subsequent taxation years.
Part 2 amends the Excise Tax Act and other related Regulations to implement a temporary GST new housing rebate for first-time home buyers.
Part 3 repeals Part 1 of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act and the Fuel Charge Regulations .
Part 4 amends the Canada Elections Act to make changes to the requirements relating to political parties’ policies for the protection of personal information.

Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Act

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and speak to a very important piece of legislation, a legislation we had a great deal of discussion on following the federal election in April. The Prime Minister and the Liberal caucus are committed to building the strongest economy in the G7. This is something we have talked a great deal about, but more important than talking about it, the government has undertaken many initiatives to ensure that we are on track to be the strongest economy in the G7 countries.

We take the issue very seriously. A number of pieces of legislation, Bill C-4 being one of them, were introduced shortly after the last election in order to address the issues that came out of the election and the general feeling in terms of how we needed to be there for Canadians in all regions of the country.

When we reflect on Bill C-4, it principally does three things: It provides a tax break for over 22 million Canadians. More than half the population of Canada is receiving a tax break.

We hear a lot about the issue of affordability, and we are very much concerned about this issue. This is why, when we hear Conservatives stand in their place, and they talk and try to challenge us on the affordability issue, I would like for them to reflect on their position on the budget, on such issues as Bill C-4. Affordability through Bill C-4 is literally putting money in the pockets of Canadians, directly through a tax break.

We understand and we appreciate that individuals are having a difficult time on the issue of affordability. This is why it was so important we bring in the legislation, as we made the commitment to do in the last election. Our Prime Minister assumed the role of Prime Minister earlier this year, not that long ago. One of the very first actions he took in sitting in the Prime Minister's chair was to give Canadians a tax break on the carbon tax, recognizing that getting rid of the carbon tax would have a positive impact for Canadians too.

I know the Conservatives do not necessarily like this, but it is one of the issues that clearly shows that the Liberal Party was able to make the changes from within to address the needs and desires of the Canadian population, which ultimately put us in a better position going into the last federal election. When I reflect on that election, I note that a number of issues came to the table. One of them, and I have referenced it in the past, is the three Ts: Trump, tariffs and trade, and the impact that was actually having on Canada.

We have a Prime Minister with an incredible background, a background that saw him appointed as the Governor of the Bank of Canada. Interestingly enough, it was actually Stephen Harper who appointed him to that position, because of his credentials. He was also the governor of the Bank of England. He is an economist, someone who truly understands how an economy works. I think Canadians reflected on that when they compared the two leaders.

They can see the types of actions the Prime Minister has taken, Bill C-4 included; there are two significant tax breaks. There is, first, as I said, getting rid of the carbon tax, and, second, through Bill C-4, giving the tax break to 22 million Canadians.

However, that is not where it stops. There is more to Bill C-4. Not only would it take the carbon tax out of the law and give tax breaks, but it would give a tax exemption on GST for first-time homebuyers, giving first-time homebuyers an opportunity to afford a bit more when purchasing a home valued up to $1 million.

These are the types of initiatives the Prime Minister took virtually out of the gate. We recognize that so much can be done to support Canadians on the affordability issue. We looked across the way to the Conservatives and presented a budget, and all but two of them voted against it. They need to know what they voted against, along with the tax breaks we have been talking about.

There is the national school food program, a program that I have had the opportunity to raise, as many of my colleagues have in question period. It is interesting to see the response we get from the Conservative Party. The national school food program is much like the national dental program, the national pharmacare program and the child care program. We can even go into the Canada child benefit program. The Conservatives have voted against all of that.

Interestingly enough, the program I want to highlight is the national school food program. I find some of the questions hard to believe. Today, members stood up and talked about children, and they asked what the government is doing to support food for children. Members should put some thought into what they voted against before they ask some of the questions they ask.

The national school food program for children provides financial support, working with the provinces, to ensure that young children in schools have breakfast, something nutritious, which is critically important. We have the far right within the Conservatives saying it is a garbage program. They do not understand. Then we get others who say they want parents to feed their own children.

I have pointed this fact out before. I have been a parliamentarian for many years, serving in Manitoba. I am a very big fan of Sharon Carstairs; she was one of my mentors. I remember that back in the late eighties, she said we have hundreds of children in Manitoba who are going to school on an empty stomach, and they cannot learn like that. There are many reasons we have children who do not have the opportunity to have breakfast. This program provides children the opportunity to learn while there is something in their tummies. Then we have this reaction from the Conservatives.

If it were completely up to me, I would be inclined to bring in legislation to put the program in place. The Conservatives have been very clear: They do not support it. That is where we see the contrast. When we have a sound social policy to support our children, the Conservatives, for far-right reasons, say no to it. They are then critical of the government and say we do not care about children. Are they serious?

Take a look at all the things we do to support children that the Conservatives have voted against. That is the reason I do not support the many actions the Conservative Party has taken. Take a look at how long it has taken us to get Bill C-4 to this stage. It was introduced months ago.

[An. hon. member]

It is your agenda.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the point is that the opportunities are there, and I would hope the Conservative Party recognizes the value of the initiatives we are taking.

I believe that last summer, the Conservatives might have even voted in favour of Bill C-4. Now things have changed. Their leader has gotten elected here, so that might have changed the dynamics somewhat, but the point is that at least in principle, it appears they support some of the initiatives. I think they should go the extra mile and recognize the value within the budget itself, because there are many initiatives that Bill C-4 would build upon in regard to the budget we presented.

I would like to make reference to a couple of the initiatives that I feel are really important for us to recognize.

One is investing in our communities, with literally hundreds of millions of dollars virtually every year for a number of years now. We are going to be investing in infrastructure that deals with hospitals, roads, bridges and community facilities. Addressing things of that nature is how we build stronger infrastructure for our economy. That is a big part of this.

Today in question period, a number of Conservatives stood up and attempted to mock the Prime Minister because of his travel. I would ultimately argue that the Prime Minister is doing exactly what he should be doing. At a time of uncertainty, no one here can predict what President Donald Trump might say, but what we do know is that Canada needs to lessen our reliance on U.S.-Canada trade. That does not mean to ignore it. We love it, we want to see it grow and we will do what we can on it, but it is really important that we expand trade opportunities beyond the United States. We have a Prime Minister who truly understands that, even though the Conservative Party is negative toward this sort of travel.

Things do not just happen overnight; they take time, and we have achieved a great deal. I was glad that the Prime Minister was in Malaysia, because while he was in Malaysia, he met with President Marcos of the Philippines. A healthy discussion took place, with them in essence saying they wanted to achieve a trade agreement between Canada and the Philippines in 2026. Is that not positive? I would argue yes.

We now have Bill C-13, which would ultimately allow for more trade opportunities between Canada, Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is a substantial piece of legislation, like Bill C-4 before us. What would it do? It would enable us to have more trade between Canada, England and Northern Ireland.

Take a look at what has happened in Indonesia. The Prime Minister has reached out there, and we will see, once again, that agreements are being made as a direct result of having a Prime Minister who is committed to expanding trade opportunities beyond the Canada-U.S. border.

When we take a look at what Bill C-4 would do, it is all part of a plan to build Canada as the strongest economy in the G7. We need to recognize that in order to protect Canada's economic sovereignty, we have to be aware of what is taking place at the ground level and why it is important that we provide tax relief. We also have to be aware of what is taking place outside our borders and respond to it.

That is why members will see a huge commitment, which we have not seen for generations, toward our military. Raising spending to 2% of GDP is a substantial commitment that will make a difference in virtually every region of our country as we expand opportunities for Canadian businesses and as we invest and beef up our Canadian military. These are the types of things that have impacts on where we are with our taxation levels and how we expand on things of that nature.

We can talk about the local level. I made reference to what the Prime Minister has done internationally, but members should take a look at what we have done at the local level. Virtually immediately after the last federal election, the Prime Minister was meeting with provinces, territories and indigenous leaders to talk about the importance of having one Canadian economy, which ultimately led to Bill C-5.

Bill C-5 amplified the need for us to have one Canadian economy. It deals with labour as well, and the mobility of labour in our country. It is a critically important area that was led by the Prime Minister, who worked with premiers, indigenous leaders and others so we could present, through Bill C-5, a major project proposal that has now had two runs. In the first run, the total accumulation had $60 billion of investment coming down the pipe, which is a significant amount of money. We can incorporate the second run, which I believe is over $50 billion, but do not quote me on that, as I am not as familiar with it.

I can tell members that every region of the country will benefit by this. Whether it is copper mines in Saskatchewan, the port of Montreal, the latest thing in Atlantic Canada, LNG in B.C. or the work being done on the relationship building between Alberta and Ottawa, there has been a genuine attempt to make sure that all of Canada's regions benefit.

It is just like Bill C-4, which is providing opportunities to deal with another important issue, affordability. On the housing aspect, it is interesting that not only does the tax break for first-time homebuyers help people directly; it also helps the housing industry by making things more affordable.

I am very grateful that, through this legislation, a tax break would be given to Canadians. I would like to think that every member of all political entities in the House will get behind Bill C-4 and support Canadians. Over 22 million people would benefit by the tax break itself. However, to take a look at the broader picture of what this government has been able to accomplish in eight months, I think we are on the right track to making Canada strong with the strongest economy in the G7.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct one thing the member said. It is not that Conservatives do not believe in the school lunch program; it is that we do not believe in driving parents into penury so that they have no choice but to use it.

The Liberals keep talking about a tax break for 22 million Canadians, but at the same time, they kept the industrial carbon tax, which effectively penalizes 40 million Canadians. If the member is serious about tax breaks, why would the Liberals not take off the industrial tax?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as clarification for my colleague across the way, the Conservative Party's position on the national food program is to get rid of it. It does not even recognize its existence. That is the reality of the Conservative Party's position. If I am wrong, I look to the House leadership to come forward.

I would remind my friend across the way that some of his colleagues have called the program complete “garbage”, while others have said it has not delivered anything. He might want to revisit that particular argument.

I see that my friend from Regina—Lewvan also wants to ask a question.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-4 eliminates pollution pricing for consumers, for individuals, but it does not propose any measures to offset the negative effects on the environment. Furthermore, members will recall that when the government eliminated the carbon tax, they sent a cheque to all Canadians outside Quebec. This little gift was sent out in the middle of the election campaign as a rebate for a tax that no longer existed.

That amounts to $814 million taken out of Quebeckers' pockets. The National Assembly unanimously requested that this money be returned to Quebeckers. The Bloc Québécois raised this issue before the budget was tabled.

Does the government plan to give back the $814 million that was stolen from Quebeckers?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I, for one, am very grateful for our new Prime Minister and the way he determined that we can, in fact, get rid of the carbon tax. That is what Bill C-4 would do.

I am very grateful that he has also recognized through this legislation that a direct tax break for all Canadians is needed. Obviously, that includes a break on income taxes, which are paid in every region of the country by some 22 million Canadians. I fully support that.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am a first-time MP and I have only been in the House for a few short months, but let me tell the House what I have observed. On this side of the House, when we talk about helping Canadians cope with the cost of living, we are introducing concrete measures, and when the time comes to vote, we are voting in favour of these measures.

As for members of the official opposition, they had a lot of questions for us lately about the cost of living and they got all riled up during question period, but when the time came to vote for concrete measures, they voted against measures to support affordability.

My colleague is a seasoned MP, so I would like to ask him whether it is common practice for members of the official opposition to oppose measures that provide support for Canadians.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, look at the cost of living issue and think about the programs incorporated within the budget, such as the national food program that we have discussed, the pharmacare program, the dental care program, the child care program and the Canada child benefit program. All of these, collectively, are there to support children and others because of the cost of living issue, and other issues.

Both the Bloc and the Conservatives voted against the budget. I find they lost a great deal of credibility. During the budget debate, it was not like many of them stood up to say they liked this program or that program. There was only negativity toward the budget and, ultimately they voted no.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoy the speeches from the member for Winnipeg North because they are always full of interesting information that does not have much truth to it. We can tell when that happens because he gets louder and louder with the more information he talks about. When he gets really loud, we know he is telling a whopper of a tale.

We heard that in the debate he had with the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan at the University of Winnipeg last week. He got louder and louder as the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan kept on beating him in the debate.

I want to get back to the lunch program. I have asked this time and again, and I would love to have the member for Winnipeg North answer. Is it not an indictment of his government that it has to feed kids at school now because parents cannot afford to? The government caused that.

The Liberal government caused the affordability crisis by spending money it did not have and creating inflation. It made parents unable to feed their own kids. The school lunch program is an indictment of the last 10 years of failed Liberal policies.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, if we want to talk about someone who does not understand reality, let us review that particular question. The member has no concept of what the program is, nor was he listening.

With respect to the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan and the debate that took place at the University of Winnipeg, I think he might want to review what actually took place. I have put out the challenge to the member to have a part two over at Carleton University here in Ottawa, and I look forward to having that debate as well. I would love to see the member who just spoke any time. I would even go to Regina to debate with him, but I suspect there is no way he would accept that challenge, because he knows he would be embarrassed.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the debate we are having today on this important legislation. Constituents in the riding of Waterloo have been sharing many comments and many concerns, so I was pleased to see that there were no report stage amendments and that we would go to debating the bill at third reading. We would like to see this bill passed so that Canadians can benefit from its impacts.

Another thing Canadians are saying is that this House used to have constructive feedback coming from a strong opposition, and there has been a lack of that. It seems that the official opposition does not want programs to be improved and it does not want to offer constructive feedback to ensure that more Canadians can benefit.

I understand that this legislation would benefit 22 million Canadians. We know times have been tough. I would like to understand from the member what he believes it is important for the Conservatives to do to help more Canadians and ensure that we can deliver, because that is the role we play.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very quick note. When we take a look at the legislative agenda, we could talk about what we have brought in. We had Bill C-2 for safer borders. We have the lost Canadians bill. We have the tax break in today's legislation. We have the one Canadian economy bill. We have bills for critical cyber systems, to combat hate, for modern treaties and to transfer the military court to civilian court. We have the new borders bill in Bill C-12. We have the treaty between Canada, England and Northern Ireland. We have the bail reform legislation.

There is a lot of substance that would benefit Canadians. We ask for the Conservatives to get on board and support good legislation. There is a lot of it.

To the member for Regina—Lewvan, I sure hope to have that debate, maybe in December. I would be happy to help organize something for December or January. Hopefully, he will show up.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite extols the virtue of the food program and how many meals it provides, but his own officials in his own department, in reply to a question, said there was no final data on the program results for 2025 because they are not yet available.

Why is he misleading this House and Canadians?

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

The member cannot say that a member is misleading this House in this chamber. I would invite the member to retract that statement.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will retract that statement and ask why the member said that.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, oh, what games the member is up to. I will tell her directly that the food program exists. Children are being fed. Contrary to the Conservative Party, the Government of Canada supports the children of Canada.

This is incorporated into the budget, and I sure wish the members opposite understood the program, supported the program and abandoned the leader of the Conservative Party's approach of not supporting the program.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for York—Durham, Housing; the hon. member for Cloverdale—Langley City, Finance; the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni, Mental Health and Addictions.

I hear members still engaging in debate and suggesting words the parliamentary secretary should have used during questions and comments, but that time is now over.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Thornhill.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to split my time.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Do we have unanimous consent to split the member's time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are three things that are assured in life: death, taxes and a Liberal government that breaks its promises.

Six months ago, the Liberals stood here and told Canadians to trust them just one more time. They promised lower spending, lower costs and to reduce the size and scope of the federal government. They said that they had heard Canadians loud and clear, that they finally understood the pain they had caused, like a toxic ex, and that things this time would be different. Every single one of those promises, like their record, is nothing but total and utter failure.

The House passed a budget with a record $78-billion deficit. That is more than twice the size of the one Justin Trudeau wanted to run years ago. That is not a tiny change. It is not a rounding error. It is billions and billions of dollars. If anybody thinks the Liberals are going to stop at $78 billion, I have a bridge to sell them, and I think the Parliamentary Budget Officer would also have something to say to it. In fact, he said the chances of their out-of-control spending being less than $78 billion was “less than 10%”.

If someone told a person there was a less than 10% chance of them being able to start their car in the morning, they would get a new car. If there was a less than 10% chance that someone would pass a math test, they would get a tutor. When we learn that the chances are less than 10% that the government will show just a bit of fiscal restraint or fiscal discipline, the Liberals will tell the Parliamentary Budget Officer he is likely going to be out of a job for telling the truth.

Here is what else he had to say, just so I can remind everybody watching. The spending is “shocking”, “stupefying” and “unsustainable”. He is a neutral, non-partisan appointee of this place. His office was put in by this very government.

The government is dropping $90 billion in new spending on the books, which is over $5,000 for every single household in Canada. That is money being taken directly out of the pockets of Canadian families and seniors through higher taxes, inflation and interest rates.

Why should we talk about that? We already spend more on the debt than this country spends on transfers to the provinces for health care. It is every dollar that is collected in GST. This means that every dollar collected on the sales tax in this country does not go to doctors, nurses or hospital capacity, but to bankers and bondholders to pay for the Liberals' addiction to spending.

If people think Justin Trudeau's continuing gift to them and their families is fiscal responsibility, the Prime Minister should say, “Hold my beer.” We keep paying for his irresponsible spending at $5,000 a pop per household. It is only going to get worse. The Prime Minister and his finance minister continue to run debt on the taxpayers' credit card. They are effectively sinking the next generation.

I will have much more to say about the budget, because I think it is wrong and dangerous for so many reasons, but we are here today to continue the debate on affordability.

Let us talk about what the government is doing on affordability, or, rather, what the government is doing to affordability. All we have to look at is the lineups at food banks in every major city and every small town. Two million people in this country are now visiting a food bank every single month. There are four million people in Toronto going to a food bank in the span of one year alone. One in five people is now skipping meals to make their food last longer.

It is not just about numbers; it is about the people behind the numbers. It is about the kid who goes to school every single day on an empty stomach who cannot learn and grow. It is about the college-educated worker who, despite working a full-time job, still finds themselves at the end of the month with not enough to pay the bills. It is about the senior citizen who, after years of sacrificing and saving, has to make the choice between heating their home or having a hot lunch. These are the stories we hear in our neighbourhoods every single day. All this is happening in Canada. This country is supposed to be one of the richest in the world.

The Prime Minister's response is the most troubling, because it is not compassionate. For him, inflation is something that happens to other people.

The response from Ottawa has been textbook on this: It is another government program, with some form or version of central planning, that will make this problem go away. However, it is not actually solving the problem. It is more spending. This is a central bank economist who somehow missed the class that would teach him that an increase in money supply in this country leads to inflation. Whatever the Liberals want to call it, it is spending. Whether they call it investment or any other name does not matter. It is the same thing. It costs every single family more than five grand in this country for the small amount of tax cut they get. Members can believe that we are not going to stand here and oppose a tax cut, but if the government is giving somebody a small tax cut and on the other end charging them $5,000 for its irresponsible spending, Canadians are going to have a lot of questions. That is exactly why we are here.

One plus one never equals two with the government. It is keeping in place such things as the Liberal taxes on food that make life more expensive while denying they exist. Only Liberals would deny that there is an industrial carbon tax on a farmer who grows food. Only Liberals would deny that there is a fuel standard on a trucker who ships food. Only Liberals would deny that there is a packaging tax on the people who sell food. Only Liberals would stand in this House every single day and deny that the person who is buying food is now paying more for it because of their taxes.

The Liberals say they are going to cut taxes in the bill, but we have to read the fine print. The tax cut adds up to $90 a month in savings for an average Canadian, but the more than $5,000 they are going to be spending because of the irresponsible budget really wipes out that $90 a month. The question is, who really comes out on top?

When someone goes to a casino in Las Vegas, and I am sure there are some people who are watching at home who have been to a casino in Las Vegas, the house always wins. Eventually, the house wins. When one lives in Canada, it is starting to feel as though the government always wins and Canadians always lose, because the $90 it gives them a month is entirely wiped out by the irresponsible inflationary spending of the massive deficits it is running, deficits it promised it would keep down $16 billion less than what it put on the table, deficits that are bigger than Justin Trudeau's deficits, deficits that are the biggest in this country other than during COVID.

Instead of more of this, the bait and switch that we continue to see, here is what I think common sense would dictate we should do: Let us cut income taxes for real, not by $90, but by hundreds of dollars a year per Canadian, by thousands of dollars a year for every Canadian, so that families can actually get relief and get ahead. Let us cut taxes on homebuilding so that young people can finally afford a home in this country. Let us cut the carbon tax in all its forms: the industrial carbon tax, the hidden taxes on food, the plastics ban and the fuel standard, which make the growing, shipping and selling of food more expensive.

Let us cut all those taxes. Let us not say that these taxes are imaginary, because millions of families across the country know that Canadians are paying more this year than last year and paid more last year than the year before. These are Canadians who have been to a grocery store in their neighbourhood, which the Prime Minister has not. That is a shame in this country, because it is the Liberals' taxes that are increasing the price of food.

Every Canadian who cannot make ends meet right now should know that their tax dollars are being spent responsibly in Ottawa. The government does not have money. It can only tax us to get more of it. When it spends it irresponsibly, it is going to cost Canadian families more than $5,000 a year. Everybody should know that.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with some attention to the member's speech. I wonder how someone from the Conservative Party could vote against a bill that reduces middle-income taxes for 22 million Canadians. How is that possible? In her speech, she said she wants taxes to be removed on new homes for new buyers, and that is exactly what the bill does. How is it possible that she would vote against such a bill?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, they needed us to get to this point in the debate.

I do not know if the member is new here, but we would never, never oppose tax cuts. What we are saying, though, is that the $90 they are giving Canadians is wiped out immediately by the $5,000 they are piling on every single Canadian family. I am not sure how the member sits with the government and votes for that.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois fully supports part 2 of the bill, but when it comes to measures like the GST exemption for first-time homebuyers, we think that it does not go far enough.

We know that saving for a down payment is one of the biggest barriers to accessing home ownership. Obviously, there is also the fact that rent and housing prices have skyrocketed and that it is hard to save up.

The Bloc Québécois made two specific proposals. The first proposal was to allow parents to cash out their RRSPs and to put that towards the home buyers' plan for their children. This is a zero-cost measure. The second proposal was to provide an interest-free loan for first-time homebuyers. This would cost next to nothing.

I would like to know what my hon. colleague thinks about those measures.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say it used to be that home ownership in this country was not a distant dream for many Canadians. Today, eight out of nine young people do not believe they will ever own a home in this country.

We brought forward solutions in the Conservative platform, and the Liberals made some promises on housing. They delivered one out of the three promises, and probably the one that affects homebuyers the least. Their solution to housing in this country is to build yet a fourth bureaucracy, at $13 billion, to build even fewer homes than we have had in this country.

Housing starts in every single city are down this month, and year over year, they will continue to go down because of more bureaucracy and fewer tax cuts on housing.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure, like my colleague and friend, many of us were back in our ridings last week talking to people. Affordability comes up in almost every conversation, whether it is about the cost at the grocery store, the cost of rent or the cost of filling our tank. I wonder if the Liberals are not getting that same feedback or are just out of touch.

When I talk to people at the grocery store, they literally look at stuff on the shelf and have to put it back because they do not have enough money left at the end of the month. The paycheques are not going as far as they used to. Also, we have seen that Canada went from 7th to 25th in the world when it comes to the quality of life index. Everything has become worse over the last 10 years. This was not the case before 2015, and it will not be the case after.

Does my colleague have feedback from the constituents in her riding from this past week?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to test this out. I was at home in my riding, and like a lot of my other colleagues, I hear the same questions about affordability and the fact that Canadians are just getting sacked with higher grocery prices and higher prices on homes and gas, so I tried an experiment.

I went to a grocery store in a riding right next door to mine that is represented by a Liberal, and lo and behold, I heard the exact same conversations. People in that grocery store came up to me and they also told me about the taxes on food, the unaffordable housing, gas, groceries and home heating. It turns out that the Liberals are hearing that from their constituents. It is just that they are not doing anything about it.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-4 and to the growing affordability crisis gripping Canadians from coast to coast. Nowhere is it felt more sharply than in my own riding of Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee. The bill fails to meet the moment, as so many introduced by the Liberal government do. It offers slogans instead of solutions and bureaucracy instead of hope.

While Ottawa debates, Canadian families are being forced to make choices that no one in a country as rich in resources as Canada should ever have to make, choices between heating their home and feeding their children. In the Okanagan, Lumby, Nakusp and the Slocan Valley, I have spoken with parents who quietly started skipping meals so that their kids can eat. Seniors who worked their entire lives are now relying on food banks. For the first time ever, food banks in our communities are reporting record numbers of working families, people with jobs needing help just to get by.

This is not the Canada they were promised. The data is as stark as it is shameful. Food inflation in Canada is rising faster than in nearly every other G7 nation. While the United States, France and Germany have all seen food price growth start to level off, Canadian families are still paying more every single month. According to Statistics Canada, grocery prices have risen more than 20% since 2020. That is hundreds of dollars a month for the average family, yet the government continues to tax the very farmers and truckers who bring food to our table. It has tripled the carbon tax, which adds cost to every stage of the food supply chain, from the fertilizer on the farm to the fuel in the trucks and the power in the grocery store. The result is higher prices on every item in the shopping cart.

With Bill C-4, the government wants to expand bureaucracy and regulatory oversight at a time when Canadians are begging for economic relief, not more red tape.

Let us be clear about what this means for real families in my riding. In Armstrong, dozens of workers at Tolko Armstrong lumber and White Valley veneer were recently laid off. These are hard-working men and women, millwrights and forklift operators, all dedicated to a proud local industry.

Tolko's statement was clear. They are not shutting down because of a lack of markets. They are shutting down because of a lack of economical fibre and because regulatory policy has made it nearly impossible to compete. The situation is made worse by the softwood lumber tariffs still imposed by the United States, tariffs that the Liberal government has utterly failed to resolve. Those illegal tariffs have cost Canadian producers more than $8 billion in duty since 2017. This money could have gone to keeping mills open, workers employed and the community stable.

Instead, it has been siphoned away by an apparently unsolvable trade dispute that the government treats as an afterthought. To make matters worse, the folks who were laid off continue to be penalized by higher prices on the food they can no longer afford, prices that are directly attributable to Liberal actions.

Canadians deserve a government that stands up for forestry families in the North Okanagan and not one that leaves them behind. They deserve a government that protects our farmers and food producers, not one that taxes them into insolvency and treats their property like its own.

Canadians deserve a government that recognizes that affordability is not just an abstract policy. It is about whether a mother can afford milk for her kids, whether a senior can keep the heat on or whether a young couple can ever hope to buy a home.

The answer is not another bill that expands government reach. The answer is to restore economic discipline, to stop wasteful spending and to remove barriers to growth in every region of the country. It means fighting to end the softwood lumber tariffs once and for all, through strong, principled diplomacy backed by a government that actually defends Canadian workers. It means repealing the hidden industrial carbon tax that drives up prices on everything every single step of the way. In the end, the debate is not about partisanship. It is about priorities.

In Lumby, one father told me that he has been working two jobs since his forestry layoff but still cannot afford groceries and rent in the same month. This is the absurd cycle of Liberal economic policy: tax more, regulate more and make life more expensive for those who can least afford it, then add insult to injury by boasting about its handouts.

Bill C-4 was presented as a step toward making life more affordable, but, buried beneath the talking points, what we actually find is yet another expansion of government control, yet another layer of Ottawa intervention that would do nothing to lower grocery bills or pay the rent.

Instead of addressing the real drivers of inflation, which are overspending, overtaxation and over-regulation, the government keeps pretending it can spend its way out of the crisis it created by overspending in the first place. Let us remember that inflation did not just happen in Canada; it was made in Canada. It was made by a government that printed and borrowed half a trillion dollars, and then denied that it would cause inflation.

While ordinary Canadians tightened their belts, the government expanded its own. It increased the size of the public service by nearly 40% since 2015, yet federal services have never been slower. Passports, veteran benefits, EI claims and everything else takes longer and costs more, and the staff back in my riding can attest to that.

Canadians deserve better than this endless cycle of spending, taxing and gaslighting. They deserve leadership that believes in the strength of our workers, the promise of our industries and the common sense of the Canadian people. Do we believe in empowering Canadians to build, grow and thrive, or do we believe that Ottawa always knows best?

My constituents have made their answer clear. They want a government that gets out of the way, lets them work and lets them keep more of what they earn. They want affordable food, secure jobs and a future worth staying here in Canada for. Bill C-4 does not deliver that.

It is time for the government to stop managing decline and start building prosperity for the forestry workers in Lumby, for the families lining up at food banks in Vernon and for every Canadian who still believes that hard work should pay off.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, in listening to the member, I get the impression he is voting against the legislation, so maybe he can provide some clarification on whether he supports Bill C-4. I would be very interested in knowing that.

On another note, I recognize that many of the concerns he raised are about supporting Canadians. We recognize that there is an affordability crisis, and that is why we have things such as the national school food program for children; the dental program, which helps seniors and others; and a national pharmacare program. We also continue to increase things such as GIS and OAS.

Can the member provide his thoughts? Does he support those types of increases and those programs?

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite seems to be missing the point, like so many Liberals. It would be lovely for every citizen of Canada to go to Disneyland once a year, but the trouble is that it costs money, so we have to be a little careful about what we do. Sure, we can do that.

If I give someone $90 and then send them an invoice for over $5,000, does that make any sense? Is that economically viable? I would suggest to the member that it is not economically viable and we have to be a bit more careful about where we are sending our trillions of dollars.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the words of wisdom in his speech.

If the government actually acknowledged that the taxes it has on food are not imaginary, and these are taxes such as the food packaging tax and the fuel standard, and if the government cut taxes in a real, tangible way that Canadians could feel, what would constituents in his riding be able to do with that extra money of their own in their pockets?

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Mr. Speaker, they would be able to feed their own kids, for one thing. They would be able to afford the basic necessities of life that they can no longer afford. We would reduce inflation, and we would make their dollars have more spending power. We have had decades of prosperity in Canada and we had it right up until 2015 when the government took charge.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Winnipeg West, MB]

Mr. Speaker, how does the hon. member reconcile his claim of this effect of inflation on our industrial carbon pricing when the Bank of Canada and the Institute for Research on Public Policy have stated specifically that this will have an effect of no more than 0.15% to, at most, 0.5% on inflation. Is the member honestly claiming that this 0.5%, at most, is making food unaffordable?

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is looking at a mountain and talking about a rock at the foot of it. It has a cumulative effect when this Liberal government continually piles on Canadians, and then it adds insult to injury by over-regulating them on top of it.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that my hon. colleague has little or no interest in measures to fight climate change. The Conservatives do not want a carbon tax. Pollution should be free. That is fine. His colleagues have the right to think that.

However, does my colleague agree that, in the midst of the election campaign, the government took $814 million from Quebeckers to send election cheques everywhere outside Quebec to essentially buy votes?

We are calling on the government to return the $814 million that was stolen from Quebeckers. Does the member agree with us?

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would think the member would prefer to stay on the topic of Bill C-4 and not address side claims that have nothing to do with it.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in a way, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-4 at third reading today. This bill was introduced at the beginning of this Parliament and was left untouched all summer. When we returned in the fall, we spent a lot of time reworking the bill in committee. I will explain later, but this is one of the bills where the fact that the Bloc Québécois holds the balance of power in committee was a boon for first-time homebuyers.

Let us start with the genesis of this bill. This year's election campaign was pretty odd. We had a Prime Minister who did not know what he was talking about when it came to economics. I know that the Prime Minister is an economist, but he quickly turned into a politician. I am a politician too. There is not necessarily anything wrong with that, but being a Liberal politician is not always a good thing.

This Prime Minister saw that people were afraid of the Conservatives and that President Trump was making threats, so he decided he would say whatever it took to get elected, without any regard for the budgetary consequences. It was in that context that the current Prime Minister announced in January or February that he would eliminate the deficit.

Then he walked into a room, probably a back room somewhere, and the people around him told him that it was not going to happen. Instead, he decided to invent a new definition of operating deficit. His definition is disputed by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, does not align with how things are done in Singapore or Great Britain, and violates established accounting principles, but he decided to invent it in order to renege on his promise.

The same is true of the Liberals' budget framework during the election campaign. The Prime Minister said that the countertariffs would bring in $20 billion, that that money would be used to finance current spending and that this would help reduce deficits. We know that, in the end, the government received only a fraction of that amount in countertariffs. As a result, we are now facing a projected deficit of almost $80 billion.

If we are to believe most analysts, including the Parliamentary Budget Officer and Fitch Ratings, who believe that the government will not be able to achieve $50 billion in cost reductions over five years, the deficit is going to be even larger.

Despite this, despite the fact that the Liberal Party was unable to table a halfway decent financial framework, which we rather successfully picked apart during the election campaign, Bill C-4 includes election promises that were hastily made by the Prime Minister whenever he wanted to grab a vote from the left or the right.

Let us talk about the $26-billion tax cut over five years. A tax cut could be a good thing. It is okay to take care of the middle class. However, when do we see a tax cut like that without a budget, without a budget forecast and without any regard for the impact this will have on balancing public finances? What is more, there was no mention of what exactly would be cut. Everyone now knows that health care and seniors are paying the price. It is the carbon tax.

The Liberals, who were the champions of the carbon tax in the last Parliament, aggressively criticized the Conservatives for wanting to abolish the carbon tax. Suddenly, during the election campaign, the Liberals decided that votes, seats and power were more important than principles, the planet, the environment and, above all, their credibility, so they got rid of the carbon tax while stealing from Quebec. That is what is in Bill C-4.

We do agree with some of the measures, particularly the GST rebate for first-time buyers purchasing a new home. However, this was essentially an election stunt and should be viewed as such. First, there is the GST rebate on a new first home. It is important to understand that this measure is designed to stimulate demand, much like the tax-free first home savings account, or FHSA.

The Liberals have been saying for several years that housing prices are going up and up. Construction costs are up. Demand has also gone up a lot. Today, we know that there is also an element that is related to immigration, the population and demand. The Liberals decided to help first-time homebuyers, who are angry about the current market, so they can have the money to outbid others using a tax shelter. That is why they created the FHSA.

According to CMHC data, the FHSA allows a person, such as a young person whose father, mother, grandfather or grandmother has money to help them contribute to an FHSA, to go fuel bidding wars in the housing market, because the supply of houses is fixed in the very short term. The result is that people are fighting for the same houses.

Today, there is another measure that is very similar, and that is the GST rebate. New homes very quickly come up for sale in new subdivisions. There are people who can afford the down payment on very expensive homes. In my riding, there are now bungalows that cost almost $1 million. I know that in places like Vancouver or around Toronto, that is still considered affordable by some people's definition, but people back home cannot afford that. If these people get GST rebates on a new home because they are first-time homebuyers or because they have not owned a home in four years, that is a good thing.

The Liberals are accusing us of voting against the budget, even though we told them our priorities. The Bloc Québécois made six demands that were affordable, all things considered. These six demands had to be met in order for the Bloc Québécois to support the budget. One of our proposals was aimed at helping first-time homebuyers who do not receive money from their parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles to fill their FHSA. This measure was intended for those who do not necessarily have an income that would allow them to maximize these accounts and who have not yet saved enough for a down payment to buy their first home and, by the same token, obtain a GST rebate.

We proposed an interest-free loan from the government to help these people finance their down payment. It was a measure that would have cost $200 million or $300 million for all of Canada, from coast to coast to coast. This measure would have cost the government about $300 per year for every $10,000 loan it granted for a down payment. We are talking here about the down payment, not the total price of the home. This measure would have ensured that the least fortunate were not left behind. The government said no.

Let us now come back to Bill C-4, which is another example of the fact that, at the time, the Prime Minister did not know the difference between a party leader, someone who campaigns, and a prime minister. On March 20, when he was Prime Minister, he issued a press release saying that the government was going to refund the GST on new homes for first-time homebuyers. Some people started buying new homes. They thought it might be a good idea to buy a house in a new subdivision. People bought houses and signed contracts. They thought they were going to get their rebate because the Prime Minister had said they would. This was not announced during the election campaign, and the Prime Minister had said it himself. Then the Prime Minister called an election and launched his election campaign. He put on a show for 36 days and then recalled Parliament. All of a sudden, people were being told that the GST rebate would only be available to people who had signed contracts on or after May 28.

Everyone who believed the Prime Minister because he was the Prime Minister, everyone who thought this man had a modicum of integrity and principles and who signed a contract to buy a home, were not eligible for the rebate. We heard from representatives from the Ontario Home Builders Association. They told us that many people were in this situation. We also heard from representatives of the Association des professionnels de la construction et de l'habitation du Québec, or the APCHQ. They told us that many of their clients were in this situation.

At the Standing Committee on Finance, we proposed an amendment to move up the date for the GST rebate on new homes so that it could also apply to these people. How did the government respond? It responded by filibustering. There was opposition from the parliamentary secretary to the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, who is also known as the Minister of Finance. I do not think that he makes many decisions in the current government. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance was opposed to including these people who were trusting enough to believe the word of the Prime Minister of Canada. The Liberals refused.

At that point, in committee, the legislative clerks had found our amendments to be in order. However, the government tried to convince the committee chair that the bill could not even be amended to bring it into line with the Prime Minister's words. The chair accepted the government's arguments and our amendments were rejected. Thankfully, the Bloc Québécois holds the balance of power on the Standing Committee on Finance. We overturned the decision of the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance not once, not twice, not five times, not eight times, but eleven times.

Eventually, we came back here to the House to plead the case of the first-time homebuyers who had been cheated by the Liberal government. The Speaker of the House told us that we were right and that the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance was wrong. With that we scored a victory for first-time homebuyers in Quebec and in the provinces. This is a victory for Quebec.

This is another example of how the Liberals operate. They make promises before the election, they get elected, and then they give as little as possible and tell people to deal with their own issues if they were naive enough to believe them. That is exactly what happened.

Now, let us talk about the other part of the bill regarding the tax cut. The tax cut will cost $26 billion over five years. Funnily enough, the Liberals are offering a tax cut of $26 billion over five years while running a deficit of at least $78 billion. We should come back to this again in a year, because the deficit could be $5 billion, $6 billion, $7 billion, $8 billion or $10 billion higher. To them, $26 billion is not a lot of money. However, when the Bloc Québécois said that we had reasonable demands for the budget, the government told us that it was too expensive.

The Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, who I assume knows how to count, was so determined to show that our budget demands were unreasonable that he multiplied them by five so he could say that we were asking for too much. We had submitted demands totalling $6.6 billion. What we were asking for was half a percentage point of GDP. It is next to nothing.

We were asking for a program for first-time homebuyers, the program I mentioned earlier. We were asking for an investment of $1.4 billion per year for social housing because, generally speaking, Quebec does not receive its share of funding from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation programs. These programs are designed for high-rise residential buildings, whereas Quebec's housing stock consists mainly of small multiplexes and buildings with five stories or less, made up of five, six or eight units. This would also have been a program for social and community housing, because there is one province in Canada that has permanent programs for the construction of social, community and co-operative housing: Quebec.

We therefore requested our share of a separate program, the rapid housing initiative, which amounted to $1.4 billion. Old age security benefits for seniors amounted to $3.18 billion. With regard to health care transfers, we were essentially asking that the amounts provided for in the temporary agreements under the Trudeau government be renewed, since they were expiring. That represented $6.6 billion. Apparently that was too much. This tax cut alone would have paid for the Bloc Québécois's requests within five years, but our demands were too expensive.

Worse yet, the tax cut is an ill-conceived, poorly thought-out election ploy. It is a fairly small tax cut. According to figures from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which I am quoting from memory, we are talking about an average of approximately $180 per person in Canada. With the cost of housing and groceries rising, that is clearly not enough to keep people afloat. However, for 60,000 people in Canada, this is a tax increase. Who are those people? They the most vulnerable people, including people with disabilities.

Canada has something called the disability tax credit. This tax credit is calculated based on the tax rate applicable to the same bracket, which has been reduced. When the tax rate on the first personal income tax bracket is lowered, the tax credit is lowered. It is a refundable tax credit. People with a disability who are too poor and who sometimes do not even pay personal income tax because they are in such a difficult situation were losing money. We are talking about 60,000 people.

Did the government think about those people? No, it did not. The Bloc Québécois did. The Conservatives also worked with these groups, who came to us and said they had not received a response from the government. The government told them that there was nothing it could do, that this is how tax credits are calculated. We are talking about 60,000 people.

These people did not benefit from an $180 tax cut. For a single person, it is more like a loss of $141. For people with disabilities who do not pay income tax, the government's tax cut increased their taxes by $141, even though they are among the most vulnerable members of society. For a couple, we are talking about a loss of $155, due to the form these tax credits take.

We had to prod the minister into announcing that he was going to try to find a solution. He ended up announcing it right out there in the foyer of the House before his appearance at the Standing Committee on Finance meeting, because he was afraid that his testimony might do him too much harm after he was confronted with all of this. That is why holding the balance of power in committee is so important. That is what making gains looks like. It means giving genuine first-time homebuyers a real GST tax credit after the government let them down. It means ensuring that vulnerable people are not abandoned by the Department of Finance. Right now, we are studying the budget implementation act and, thanks to the Bloc Québécois's work with the groups that flagged this issue to us last spring, we know that the Department of Finance will look into this matter. We are confident of that.

The carbon tax is just one example among many of how this government is backpedalling on the environment. Just before he called the election, the Prime Minister decided to abolish the carbon tax because he did not want a carbon tax election, as the Conservatives wanted. This is how the mechanism worked. In provinces where the tax applied, the tax that would be paid later in the quarter was refunded upfront. It would be collected later. This was intended to make the mechanism socially acceptable when it was introduced. The government said it would send out the cheque first and collect the tax later. What did the Liberal government do? It abolished the tax. It never collected it for that quarter, and yet it still sent a rebate to people in seven provinces who had never paid it in the first place. The government still sent them cheques.

The government told us that we had a different pricing system in Quebec, and that was why we did not get a cheque. When it sent out those cheques with money from the government's consolidated revenue fund, 22% of which came from Quebec taxpayers, not one province, including Quebec, was paying a federal carbon tax. The move was denounced by a motion passed unanimously in the National Assembly of Quebec and by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, journalists and analysts. The only ones who thought the Earth was flat in this case were the Liberals. There are 42 Quebec Liberals here who claim that they are proud Quebeckers and that they represent Quebec. How can they claim to represent Quebec when a Prime Minister from Ontario, who represents an Ontario riding, a parliamentary secretary from Winnipeg and a bunch of members from British Columbia tell them to vote against Quebec and they obey, despite the motion adopted by the 125 members of the National Assembly? That is exactly what happened, and it is just one example among many of how this government is backpedalling on climate action.

The last budget included $4 million for the environment. I was at the budget lock-up with the member for Repentigny, and we were looking for the government's environmental policy. To pretend that they were investing money, the Liberals had to include critical minerals in that part. We are talking about $4 million over five years for the environment. Now the government wants to go after the only thing left, the industrial carbon tax. It is funny that the Liberals want to go after this, because we heard from the Governor of the Bank of Canada at the Standing Committee on Finance.

The Conservatives said that everything produced by big businesses that would be hit with the industrial tax is expensive, including steel, and they produce materials that are used to build housing, so that would increase the tax on homes. The Governor of the Bank of Canada said that it had no effect on inflation and that we should look elsewhere to find the source of price increases, because these big businesses export their materials.

Bill C‑4 is a mishmash of all sorts of things. We are obviously in favour of the part about housing, but how can anyone be in favour of a major environmental reversal that only served the Liberals' electoral interests? How can anyone support that? It is rather difficult. How can anyone unreservedly support a tax cut that ignores people with disabilities, that gives very little to households and that is ultimately being used to fund the cuts to health transfers that we saw in the last budget?

All I can say is that the government needs to stop introducing bills like this one, where everything and anything is all mixed together.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the good fortune of sitting in front of my esteemed colleague, who is an academic and economist by profession.

I was a little troubled by his comments on the possible role of a trained economist in politics. The current Prime Minister is a world-class economist. He was the governor of two central banks. I do not know of anyone else in the history of Canada, or perhaps anywhere else, who has done the same. This is someone who has had an international career and who knows how finance and economics work. My colleague seems to be saying that someone like that who enters politics is not a good politician by definition. I am a little confused, because he and I have somewhat similar backgrounds. We are not professional politicians. We have done other things in life.

Why would a trained economist not have a place as a politician in Canada?

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, members often say "esteemed colleague", but in this case, it is really true.

I think my colleague misunderstood what I said. The Prime Minister is an economist who has done great things. I have read his book Values. I have it at home. I even made notes in it. It is because of all the wonderful things he has said and written in the past that I am disappointed in his behaviour today.

The disappointment is proportional to the Prime Minister's previous values. I would love to believe that the member for Québec Centre has been true to his values throughout his political career. I want to believe that. One example is that he reinstated benefits for families in his first term. This is someone who came in and made political moves that were in line with what we can read about his academic career.

The Prime Minister is doing the exact opposite. He is someone for whom values are just a word and for whom everything else can be sacrificed on the altar of votes and power.

[Burton Bailey, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member's speech highlights how dire the situation in our country has become over the past 10 years of Liberal government. The government seems to forget that there is only one taxpayer and that there is no such thing as government money. All the money the government spends comes off the backs of Canadians.

I would like to give the member an opportunity to explain why he thinks the government believes it is okay to spend Canadians' hard-earned money recklessly.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are all in opposition and usually, we rarely attack each other. My colleague is right on the first point. Ultimately, there is only one taxpayer. At the end of the day, the taxpayer gets all the tax bills. That is why we are calling for health transfers. That is why we think that the government should stop disengaging from health care funding and stop keeping the health transfer escalator at a level lower than system costs.

What happens at the end of all this? What happens is that Quebec and the provinces become unable to provide care and are forced to raise taxes, increase the debt and cut back on services. That is exactly what is happening. I do not mind the Conservatives being alarmist over the current situation, but we have been asking them for the past four years whether they want to see health transfers increased, so why have we never gotten an answer?

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his eloquent presentation.

He talked about the elimination of the carbon tax, which created a debt that has yet to be paid. The Quebec National Assembly roundly condemned this unpaid debt.

We both sat in the last Parliament. Members will recall that every time the Conservatives rose during question period, they said the government was going to “triple, triple, triple the carbon tax”. They would not stop repeating that. Every time, the Liberals insisted that the carbon tax was fundamental, essential and necessary and that the future of the world depended on it.

Then, all of a sudden, the Liberals scrapped it. Can my colleague explain the shift in thinking that led them there?

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is because the Liberals became conservative to steal votes from the Conservative Party. It is true and it has been proven that the Liberal Party of Canada, which currently forms the government, stole $814 million from Quebeckers. It stole that money.

When the 42 Liberal members from Quebec tell us that they are standing up for Quebec, that is utterly false. They were not elected by Quebeckers to steal from Quebeckers. They took advantage of people's fear of Donald Trump so they could get elected and then said they were going to take $814 million. That $814 million is as much as the whole SAAQclic project cost.

It is more than what we are asking for in health transfers. It is three times the annual amount that the Prime Minister is going to spend in Quebec next year on hospital infrastructure. It is a lot of money that was stolen from Quebeckers.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I gather from his speech that my colleague from Mirabel believes it is important to be there for the people who need it the most.

Budget 2025 includes several measures such as automatic benefits to ensure that everyone who really needs federal benefits receives them. We made the national school food program and a tax credit for personal support workers permanent. However, when it came time to vote on this budget, our colleague voted against it. It is a bit like spending years calling for funding to extend the runway at the Magdalen Islands airport and then voting against that funding when it is granted.

My question for my colleague is as follows. Will he commit to voting for Bill C-4 this time? It includes a tax cut for the middle class and a GST rebate for first-time homebuyers, so it will truly help Canadians.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in my region, the now Liberal riding of Thérèse-De Blainville has lost 300 jobs at Paccar. What was the Liberal member's response? On October 23, at 7:36 a.m., on Mario Dumont's show, she suggested that these workers call community organizations and food banks, that they come up with a plan A, B or C, that they not take it personally, that they find another job, that they go back to school and that they go work somewhere else.

The government members rise, but they do not understand that, as members of the opposition, we cannot find fault with all 500 pages of a budget. That is why we set priorities and why we are consistent and transparent. That is why we submitted our priorities in advance. Rather than acknowledging that, they lecture us, even though they were the ones who said no to Quebec and turned their backs on our people. They go through their little shopping list, while one of their own tells people to go back to school even though the government has abandoned them.

I invite my colleague to take a good look at his party and acknowledge that it does not defend the interests of Quebeckers.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it was an impressive speech by my hon. colleague.

The budget will mean a $78-billion deficit. This money is going to be borrowed against future generations, to be paid by Canadians for the longest time we can ever imagine.

What does the member think of the deficit? Should we go into a $78-billion deficit with a budget?

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the federal government is borrowing money at Quebeckers' expense. If we look at the public debt of the average Quebecker, we see that the average Quebecker owes nearly twice as much in federal debt as in Quebec debt. That is Canada's legacy to Quebeckers.

Now, will it be $78 billion or $79 billion? I think it could be more, because the government told us that it would find a way to cut spending by $50 billion. It has identified $10 billion in cuts, and maybe only half of that will be feasible. We saw in the budget lock-up that public servants do not even know what the government's plans are. They should have already found $800 million to cut a month ago.

What worries me is the lack of transparency and planning and the fact that no one knows where we are going to be in three months' time with this government.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, Bloc members focus a lot of attention on the health care issue. During the nineties, there was a great debate inside the Manitoba legislature. What was raised, if not in the chamber, outside the chamber, was a tax-point shift that was agreed to with the provinces where cash was being replaced with tax points. That is one of the reasons the percentage is not as high as members opposite would maybe have liked to see. It was Jean Chrétien who established a guarantee in cash.

I am wondering if the member would not agree that having Canada contribute the cash, with record amounts of it today, is a positive thing for all of us.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North does not know what he is talking about. He is talking about the transfer levels, while we are taking about the discrepancy in the transfers. We are not talking about the level once tax points are taken into account; we are talking about the discrepancy. What we want the government to understand is that, if system costs increase by 6% but transfers only increase by 5%, the government is disengaging because of that discrepancy, regardless of the tax points or the level.

Maybe the Liberals should get their wages frozen for seven or eight years so they can understand what it feels like when the amount of money somebody receives does not grow at the same rate as the cost of living or the cost of providing services. We are not talking about the level of transfers, but the rate at which they increase. Starting with this year's amount, including tax points, if system costs increase by 6% and transfers increase by 5%, there will be a 1% difference that will build up over time, and that is very serious, whether my colleague is right or wrong about transfer levels and tax points.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Québec Centre.

Our new government was elected in the spring with a mandate to build a stronger, more resilient economy. We got straight to work from day one. I am thinking of all the investments we have made in housing and infrastructure that are going to stimulate the economy, the creation of the Major Projects Office or even the removal of interprovincial trade barriers. I am thinking of our buy Canadian policy, which will put the federal government's purchasing power to work for our businesses to once again stimulate our economy. I am thinking of all the agreements we are currently negotiating or have already signed with various countries around the world.

What is behind all this? In our desire to strengthen the Canadian economy, there is one principle that is very important to us: to ensure that the economy works for everyone. By making our economy stronger, we can fund measures that are important for making life more affordable for Canadians. Early in our mandate, we introduced Bill C-4 in the House, which includes three key measures that will have a real impact on people's lives.

First, we are proposing a tax cut for the middle class. The lowest tax bracket will have its tax rate reduced from 15% to 14%. This measure will benefit more than 22 million Canadians and will save each family up to $840. That means more money in people's pockets that they can use for the things that matter to them.

The second important item in Bill C-4 is the GST rebate on new homes valued at $1 million or less. We want to help Canadians become homeowners, whether they are young people, young families or long-time renters who want to get into the housing market and become homeowners. We want to help Canadians achieve this dream, and we want it to be affordable. That is why we are eliminating the GST on the purchase of a first home, on top of all the other housing measures we are putting in place. In budget 2025, we are investing over $13 billion through Build Canada Homes to stimulate housing construction across the country, including affordable housing. In addition to everything we are doing through Build Canada Homes, we hope that removing the GST on the purchase of a first home will provide a financial incentive to buy a home and encourage property developers to increase the stock of available homes nationwide.

Finally, in Bill C‑4, the government also announces that it is eliminating carbon pricing for consumers. When that was done on April 1, people very quickly saw prices drop at the pump, including in Madawaska—Restigouche, New Brunswick. It also had a tangible impact on heating costs in the Atlantic provinces, because many people there still use gas to heat their homes in the winter. I want to be clear: This in no way undermines our commitment to fighting climate change. Carbon pricing had unfortunately become a divisive and controversial policy. The fight against climate change is so important that we cannot afford to maintain a policy that overshadows all of our other climate efforts. One example I am thinking of is our climate competitiveness strategy, which was announced in the 2025 budget, as well as all the other measures we are putting in place.

What does this mean? It means that Bill C-4 is part of a series of measures that our government is implementing to help people cope with the rising cost of living. Budget 2025 includes several tangible measures. I am thinking of the fact that we have made Canada's national school food program permanent. This program ensures that children start their day with a full stomach. Children want to have a productive day at school and want to learn, but they cannot do it an empty stomach. We understand this, and we are here for children across the country. An agreement has been signed with the Province of New Brunswick to expand the school food program to many schools, including some in my riding. I am thinking in particular of the Marie-Gaétane school in Kedgwick, which I graduated from several years ago. It benefits from this program, and so do several other schools in my riding. This is an essential program that is having a tangible impact on our children's lives. In budget 2025, we are making it permanent. We have also announced the introduction of automatic federal benefits.

We saw that there was a problem. Many people need and are entitled to federal benefits like the Canada child benefit, the Canada disability benefit and GST rebates. However, some of these people were not accessing the benefits to which they were entitled because they did not file their tax returns. A new measure will be implemented for automatic tax filing for people with low incomes and simple tax situations. This is a concrete measure to ensure that the system guarantees that the people who need federal benefits the most can access them.

We also announced a tax credit for personal support workers worth up to 5% of their earnings or $1,100 per year. This is a concrete measure to help our personal support workers, who do essential work. These are the people who take care of our seniors. These are the people we call upon to take care of our parents and grandparents. They do essential work for Canadians, and we recognize that work. That is why, in budget 2025, we are proposing a tax credit to help them.

The Canada summer jobs program is another example. This program gives young people access to a job that could potentially help them pay for their education. The Canada summer jobs program often provides young people with their first work experience. In budget 2025, not only did we maintain funding for this program, we increased it. Last summer, I visited over 200 workplaces in my riding of Madawaska—Restigouche. I can attest to this program's importance to the young people in my riding. We are also proposing plenty of other measures to help young people get jobs. For example, through budget 2025, we are going to invest $300 million in the youth employment and skills strategy over the next two years.

It is very important to know that we made sure that budget 2025 would protect all the essential social programs that are helping Canadians cope with the cost of living. These include the Canada child benefit, which is received by more than six million parents across the country. This program transfers over $40 million to my constituents to meet their children's needs.

We recently learned that more than five million Canadians are now enrolled in the Canadian dental care plan. This plan is having a real impact. I remember someone in my riding who told me she had dental issues. She simply could not afford to go to the dentist, and this situation had been going on for years. Because eligibility was expanded to all age groups in May, this person was able to access much-needed affordable dental care this summer. This is yet another example of a concrete measure that is improving people's lives.

We have also maintained our national affordable child care program, which benefits more than 900,000 children. On this side of the House, we understand that a strong Canada requires strong families. We have also maintained the Canada disability benefit, which helps more than 465,000 people across the country. We are also continuing with the Canada workers benefit, which benefits more than three million people.

All the other investments we are making in infrastructure can also have spin-offs that will help make the cost of living more affordable. I would like to give a concrete example of an announcement that was recently made in my riding regarding public transit. Last week, I had the opportunity to announce, on behalf of the Minister of Infrastructure and Housing, an investment of more than $700,000 to expand public transit service in various communities in my riding of Madawaska—Restigouche. This will give people in Vallée‑des‑Rivières, Grand Falls, Saint‑Quentin, and Kedgwick access to flexible, affordable, high-quality public transit that is truly tailored to the needs of rural communities.

This is in addition to initial federal funding that made it possible to launch this service in the Edmundston region, in Madawaska. A person from Saint‑Quentin will be able to travel to Edmundston for only $5. This means seniors who do not have transportation will be able to visit their families or get to their medical appointments. Workers will be able to commute between their homes and their workplaces. Post-secondary students will be able to travel to the Edmundston campus of the Université de Moncton. This measure, this investment, will have a meaningful impact on the lives of families in Madawaska—Restigouche, as well as seniors, vulnerable individuals, and workers.

On this side of the House, when we talk about measures to help people cope with the cost of living, we follow up with concrete action. I look forward to voting in favour of Bill C-4 so it can pass and become law.

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I particularly listened when the member across the way talked about the carbon tax and all the conversation we heard about it prior to the election about how the carbon tax did not drive up the cost for Canadians and that, in fact, more money was going into their pockets.

I am curious if now the member is talking about how removing the carbon tax is driving the cost down, which we know is not really the case. Does he not now believe in the previous argument, or does he now agree the carbon tax did indeed drive up the cost of everything?

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to my colleague that the fight against climate change is both a moral and economic imperative. It is important to have a variety of measures in place to reduce our carbon footprint.

As for consumer carbon pricing, it is important to note that there was a rebate system. Yes, people paid a little more at the pump, but there was a rebate. As I mentioned in my speech, this policy had become controversial. It no longer had widespread support.

The fight against climate change is so important. We need to build a greater consensus among Canadians to really ensure that we implement ambitious climate measures that are tailored to the challenges of the day.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments, including his remark about the GST break on new homes. In my riding, however, the problem is that people are unable to save up enough money to buy a new home. Rents are rising and house prices keep going up, making the situation all the more difficult.

I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about our proposals for people who have not saved up a down payment yet. We have two proposals and both are simple. The first is to allow parents to use their RRSPs to help their children put together a down payment. The second is to offer interest-free government loans to help young people and new homebuyers with their down payment.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the housing crisis is real. There is a shortage of housing across the country, including in my riding of Madawaska—Restigouche. When faced with a situation of this magnitude, the government must take action. Through the Build Canada Homes program, we will invest more than $13 billion to stimulate housing construction across the country. Evidently, significantly increasing the number of available homes could put downward pressure on prices. It is a matter of supply and demand.

Funds will also be set aside for affordable housing through Build Canada Homes. Thanks to federal funding, we have already seen a lot of construction of this type of housing in my riding, in cities such as Edmundston and Campbellton. I have no doubt that with the investments we are making with Build Canada Homes, we will see more and more construction projects across the country, including in my riding.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was very impressed to hear my esteemed colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche say that last summer, he visited 200 places where people had found jobs through the Canada summer jobs program. I wish him good luck and lots of fun next summer, because the program is increasing the number of funded positions from 70,000 to 100,000.

What does he think about the impact this program is having on young people and community organizations in his riding?

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the Canada summer jobs program is essential for our young people and for our small businesses and community organizations. Last summer, I visited day cares, summer camps, museums and festivals. I met people in public works and people who performed a variety of tasks. Without this program, their employers simply might not have been able to afford to hire them for the summer.

This provides our small businesses and community organizations with the tools they need and gives them access to a workforce during the summer. It also gives young people in our regions the opportunity to gain relevant work experience. Many of the young people I spoke with were gaining work experience for the first time. For others, it was experience related to their field of study. This program has a major impact.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my Liberal colleague across the way. The student jobs with the Canada summer jobs program are interesting. However, when the government cuts 40,000 positions from the public service, even through attrition and voluntary departures, that means 40,000 fewer positions for young people who want to enter the labour market and have good union jobs as well.

What does he think of that?

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the various items will be carefully considered. We are definitely facing challenges right now. We had to invest in infrastructure, housing and all sorts of things.

We have allowed ourselves some flexibility. We are going to spend less so that we can invest more. We are going to invest over $300 million in the new youth employment strategy.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Bill C-4, the making life more affordable for Canadians act.

The bill would enact three important measures designed to make life more affordable for Canadians at a time when a range of economic headwinds are combining to pose significant affordability challenges. First, we would cut taxes for 22 million Canadians; second, we would eliminate the GST for most first-time homebuyers for new homes; and third, we would cancel the consumer carbon price while keeping industrial pricing regimes in place and, in fact, reinforcing them so we can make life more affordable for Canadians while tackling the existential challenge of climate change.

In a rapidly changing and uncertain world, Canada's government is focused on what we can control. We are protecting our communities and our country, we are building our economy with major projects and millions more homes, and we are empowering Canadians with lower costs and new opportunities to help them get ahead. Bill C-4 is part of our government's plan to ensure that every Canadian has more control over building their own future.

Bill C-4 would lower taxes for 22 million Canadians. In practical terms, this means that the tax rate on the first personal income tax bracket would drop from 15% to 14%. In 2025, this first tax bracket applies to the first $57,375 of taxable income. For individuals whose taxable income is below that cut-off, their entire income tax will be reduced. The taxes of people whose income is above the cut-off will be reduced on the first $57,375. In total, this represents a tax reduction of up to $420 per taxpayer in 2026. For a family with two taxpayers, it would be up to $840.

After the bill was introduced, the Canada Revenue Agency updated its source deduction tables for the second half of the 2025 tax year. That means the reduced tax rate is already in effect for many Canadians. Let me remind the House that the tax cut specified in the bill came into effect on July 1.

Ultimately, because the one percentage point cut in the lowest tax rate would come into effect halfway through the year, the full-year tax rate for 2025 would be 14.5%, while the full-year rate for 2026 and future tax years would be 14%. However, for that to happen, Bill C-4 must be passed. This is important support for Canadians. It is a very good reason to vote in favour of the bill.

Another good reason to vote for Bill C-4 is a GST rebate that would help Canadians access the housing market. Under the law, the GST generally applies to the sale of new or substantially renovated housing. Bill C-4 would eliminate the GST, or the federal portion of the HST, for first-time homebuyers on a new home valued up to $1 million. It would also allow first-time homebuyers to reduce the amount of tax they pay on a new home valued between $1 million and $1.5 million.

The first-time homebuyers GST rebate included in Bill C-4 would save Canadians up to $50,000 on a new home. It would allow more young people and families to enter the housing market. Moreover, this measure could incentivize first-time homebuyers to buy newly built homes. In turn, this increased demand would encourage developers to build more homes, which would have a positive effect on housing supply. Expanding the housing stock is indeed key to addressing housing affordability.

Canada has been in the midst of housing crisis for several years now. Our government has a plan to double the pace of residential construction over the next decade. Any policy that can contribute to that is welcome. There are others, such as Build Canada Homes, which is investing in and will invest in the renovation and construction of many social and deeply affordable housing units across the country.

The third thing Bill C-4 would do would be to remove the consumer carbon price from law following its cancellation back in April.

Large emitters will still be subject to pollution pricing, as that is an important and central pillar of Canada's plan to build both a strong economy and a greener future. Industrial carbon pricing systems encourage investment in technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Our government has been very clear. Pollution pricing for large emitters will remain a key part of our plan to build a strong economy and a greener economy.

In conclusion, the bill proposes three clear measures that will help Canadians in very concrete ways. First, there is a tax cut that will put more money in the pockets of Canadian workers, up to $420 per taxpayer and up to $840 for a family of two, impacting 22 million taxpayers across the country. Second, there is a GST rebate for first-time homebuyers purchasing a new home. This represents savings of up to $50,000 on the initial cost of purchasing a new home to help first-time buyers and young people in particular enter the housing market. Third, there is the removal of consumer carbon pricing from law.

I urge all members of the House to vote in favour of this bill.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am curious. The Liberal Party seems to be very excited about giving tax cuts and making things more affordable for Canadians. I wonder why it took the luxury tax off luxury vehicles but continues to keep the HST and GST on health care services such as massage therapy.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the new member and obviously commend his important work. However, I would warn him about the things that previous members of the Conservative Party have done over the last few years.

The first thing Conservative MPs did in 2016 was vote against the middle-income tax cut at that time. Another thing that other Conservative MPs did, just a few years later, was to again vote against a middle-income tax cut. That was around 2020 or 2021. Therefore, I invite him to consider very carefully how he will vote on Bill C-4 so that future Conservative MPs can base their future votes on his soon-to-be-known behaviour.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is proud to talk about eliminating carbon pricing. I would remind the House that this was one of the marquee policies of this government, which boasted that 80% of people were receiving more money than they paid. The government scrapped it without putting any other measures in place.

Here is what interests me as a member from Quebec. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the fact that Quebec has its own system and that the federal government took $814 million out of Quebeckers' pockets to send vote-buying cheques to Canadians during the election campaign.

As a member from Quebec, does he agree with this decision to steal $814 million directly out of Quebeckers' pockets to send vote-buying cheques?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend knows very well what has taken place over the past few months. A payment was promised to all Canadians in the provinces that participated in the consumer carbon pricing regime, which did not apply to Quebec or British Columbia. The regime no longer exists. Therefore, the rebate does not exist either.

That has been very well understood, I think, by everyone who has been following the situation over the past few months.

[Steeve Lavoie, Liberal, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I know that as soon as he gets a chance, my colleague will travel around in his riding and speak with his constituents.

I have a two-part question.

First, what are people saying about all the programs he talked about? Second, in his view, what does the Leader of the Opposition think about the measures that we want to bring in for Canadians?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou, who is now a Liberal member from the greater Quebec City area and who has increased the number of Liberal members from the greater Quebec City area by 50%.

It is not complicated. The Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois voted against the Canadian dental care plan and the Canada child benefit. On top of that, the Conservatives called the national school food plan wasteful and trash. They also voted against child care.

These are examples of measures that are very important to the people in my riding, and it is unfortunate to have to repeat once again that the Conservative members have systematically opposed them.

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question about the first-time homebuyer tax credit the Liberals are offering, which Conservatives loved because it was a part of our platform.

I am in the housing market. That is my background. I am wondering if the Liberals have given any thought, considering the cost of housing, as to how many young people this is actually going to help with getting into the housing market given the high price of construction in the current market.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's input, which suggests that she will vote in favour of Bill C-4 because she seems to be supporting the removal of GST on the purchase of new homes for first-time homebuyers. That is excellent news.

We look forward to confirming that vote soon in the House. It is great that she supports the measure, and we look forward to seeing that in the House through her vote.

The House resumed from November 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-4, An Act respecting certain affordability measures for Canadians and another measure, be read the third time and passed.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour and privilege to rise on behalf of the great people of southwest and west central Saskatchewan. This weekend, we got to experience the first real blast of winter back home. It was down to the mid minus 20s. We had a bit of snow on the ground. I think we are fully into the grips of winter here now. To everybody who is out driving on the roads, or out working in the cold, I thank them for what they do and hope they stay safe. Again, it is an honour to be able to represent them here in the House of Commons.

I would like to say, as well, that I will be splitting my time with the member for Markham—Unionville.

We are speaking today on Bill C-4. If the government were to come up with a creative title for this bill, it could start with “repealing Justin Trudeau”. This would be a good way to frame this bill, because, for the last number of years, we heard over and over, time and time again, from the Liberals on that side of the House that Canada had to have a carbon tax, that the carbon tax was the most effective way to deal with climate change, that the carbon tax was an affordability measure.

We heard all kinds of ludicrous and crazy comments from the government about the carbon tax, and the Liberals told us repeatedly, again and again, that we had to have it. We had to have it. Conservatives needed to support the government, or else, and so on and so forth, yet here we are: One of the Prime Minister's first acts after becoming Prime Minister was to halt the regulations on the carbon tax. Here in this bill, we have it written in part 3 about how they are finally going to repeal all the clauses of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act and the fuel price on consumers. This is great. Conservative pressure got the government to finally admit and realize the carbon tax was punitive and punishing to Canadians.

Further proof of that is that right now, the price of gas around the country is actually at a nice low point. I would like to see it even lower yet. I will be honest; it could and should be lower, but at this point in time, it is significantly down from the highs of around $1.80, when we were at the peak of the madness with the Liberals and their insistence on the carbon tax. The last time I filled up, it was $1.18. Removing the carbon tax has had a huge portion to do with that. There are market measures, of course, that impact that, but the carbon tax was something that was imposed by the government on Canadians.

However, what the Liberals do not do in this bill is repeal the industrial carbon tax. We are seeing them actually double down on their insistence that it has to be in place. I am referencing the industrial carbon tax because this is an affordability bill, and the industrial carbon tax is a hidden tax on Canadians, but, in particular, it is because this bill also deals with housing and how the government is going to repeal the tax mechanism for first-time homebuyers on new or substantially renovated properties. Again, that was actually a Conservative idea. Conservatives were the ones who first proposed removing the tax on new and purpose-built homes, but the Liberals commandeered that as well.

Again, it is good to see two Conservative proposals and ideas make it into this bill. Our proposal would have gone a little further than this one does, but nevertheless, two Conservative principles in one bill is a good place to start for the government.

However, I would like to see them go a bit further. Why? Well, back in January, the Prime Minister, before he was the Prime Minister, was giving an interview, and he said to the interviewer something along the lines, “How much steel do you actually use? How much steel do you actually use?”, to downplay the role steel plays in the Canadian economy.

Well, this bill talks about housing. Within it, there are provisions on multi-dwelling units, condos and things like that. Just about every single condo that is built in this country has steel in it. We need steel in order to build high-rise buildings. We need steel for manufacturing. We need steel for all kinds of things.

I represent a riding in Saskatchewan. We have some manufacturers there. They tell me the industrial carbon tax is one of the single biggest threats they face. Again, because it is a hidden tax, they do not see it on their line items of the material they are bringing into their business to make their products with, but they know it is there, because it is forced onto the large emitters, which again are largely steel producers, concrete producers and things like that. This is one area where it applies.

However, it is also driving up the cost of housing. It has also had a dramatic impact on the cost of being able to build recreational facilities. I know the City of Swift Current is looking, first, to build a new swimming pool, and in the long term to add an indoor soccer facility and things like that. The cost to build this project in Canada has more than doubled in just the last couple of years.

The costs continue to skyrocket. We hear the Liberals get up and say it is Donald Trump's fault, or it is because of global issues, and so on and so forth, but the reality is that there are self-imposed issues at play here, and the industrial carbon tax is one of them.

There are other small towns affected, smaller communities, like the community of Biggar, for example. It is facing problems with its curling rink, which has been shut down for a couple of years. Biggar is one of the best communities for curling in Canada. It produces world champions, Olympic champions. People like Sandra Schmirler are from there, among a few others as well. It is a fantastic community that has always punched above its weight. The costs are exorbitant for Biggar to replace its curling rink, and when we look at a community of roughly give or take 2,000 people, plus or minus a few, that is a huge cost for a community like that to bear.

The government is single-handedly driving some of those costs to be higher than they need to be. If the government truly wanted to make this bill about affordability, it could have scrapped the industrial carbon tax, but it did not do it.

Another measure that the government could have taken is around lumber, so let us talk about lumber for a minute. If we are talking about housing, lumber is a huge part of that. We just had a take-note debate in the House last week on sawmill closures and on the softwood lumber issue. I will just reiterate that B.C. has seen around, give or take, 40 sawmill closures since 2015. Members will note that 2015 was the beginning of Canada not having a softwood lumber deal with the United States. That represents jobs and paycheques, but it is also GDP that Canada no longer has.

This time last year, there was an article written about nine forestry plant closures in Quebec. That was a CBC article. If anybody does not believe me, they can look it up. The CBC even wrote about it. Then we hear the Liberals trying to say that Canada has a better deal than everybody else around the world with the United States when it comes to tariffs and things like that, but we have some value-added products we make in Canada, such as kitchen cabinets, which we used to send down to the United States, and these have almost ground to a halt. Why is that? It is because we have one of the highest tariff rates in the world on these value-added products going down to the States. It is more than double what Europe's tariff rate is, so the Liberals' argument does not hold any water when it comes to some of these products.

If the government wanted to address affordability for Canadians, one of the places it could have started was getting a softwood lumber deal with the United States and prioritizing that. The Prime Minister said that he was the man for a crisis, and that was why Canadians needed to elect him. Tariffs have only gone up. They have gotten worse on steel and on lumber. If we look at affordability, it has gotten out of hand.

Part of this bill, as I mentioned earlier, is the tax cut for Canadians. The Parliamentary Budget Officer did a nice report outlining the impacts it would have on Canadians. The average Canadian is going to see $280 in average savings, which is a small amount, but every bit of savings would help. However, let us break it down a bit more. When we look at what a single parent in the first income tax bracket is going to save in one year, it is $140. A single senior in the first income tax bracket is the biggest loser here, with only $50 in savings.

If we compare that to a senior couple in the second income tax bracket, they are going to save $680. The discrepancy between people who are in the first bracket and later in the second, third, fourth and fifth income tax brackets is crazy. When we look at the cost of living, we know it is seniors on a fixed income who are disproportionately impacted. When we look at single mothers with children, trying to put healthy, nutritious food on the table, they are struggling. This tax break shows that they are basically getting the equivalent of a couple of loaves of bread and a couple of packages of sandwich meat. That is about what it would amount to.

If the government truly wants to tackle affordability issues, I have outlined a few areas where it could do that, and there are many others. I am sure I can get to them in the questions and comments.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the member made reference to the industrial carbon tax. Look at the Alberta premier, who is a Conservative, by the way. She is supportive of the industrial carbon tax.

My question is related to Bill C-4. It is a very powerful piece of legislation that would enable over 22 million Canadians to get a tax break. The Conservatives like to talk, and talk is cheap when it comes to delivering on important issues. They like to filibuster to prevent laws from passing. Back in the day, I guess it was in 2015 or 2016, the Conservatives voted against a tax break for Canada's middle class.

Will the member commit that they will not only vote in favour of this bill, but also see this bill pass before the end of the year?

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Mr. Speaker, as I told the member, this bill has some Conservative values and Conservative principles in it. The Liberals are starting to run out of ideas. This is Bill C-4. It is only the fourth piece of legislation that this place has seen, and already, they are trying to plagiarize Conservative ideas and principles.

Of course, we are all for tax breaks for Canadians. We would like to see the government take it even a step further. When we look at the tax that is collected, it is not even enough to cover the cost of servicing the debt load the government is saddling onto the next generation of Canadians.

It is time for the Liberals to start talking about and doing things to try to increase productivity in Canada. Canadians need to see their paycheques go further and be able to do more. That would solve a lot more than the government coming up with more programs that do not actually help Canadians.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed my colleague's speech, and I especially appreciated when he mentioned the forestry plant closures in Quebec. That is what happened with the Arbec mill in Amos, in my riding. I wonder if he could talk about solutions that could have been included in this bill.

For example, the Bloc Québécois is proposing that the federal government pay 50% of the countervailing duties being imposed. Everyone agrees that borrowing from the federal government is essentially cost-free. The result is that it is the people on the ground, namely the machinery owners and so on, who end up paying. A wage subsidy would also be useful.

That is the context, but what did the government propose in this bill? It plans to lower taxes. What does that mean? It means that one-third of this year's deficit will go into people's pockets. People will take the cheque, but the generational debt will remain.

Should that money have been invested elsewhere, perhaps in our forestry industry?

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member is right. The forestry sector is one of the breadwinners for Canada, or at least it has been historically. The government has completely abandoned and neglected it. I would have liked to see more measures to support economic growth, because that is what the forestry sector brings. Unfortunately, the member's riding has been decimated by bad Liberal policy, again ignoring getting a trade deal done with the United States.

We need more demand for these products in Canada. Housing starts are still going down across this country. If the government got out of the way so that we could truly enable homebuilding to happen, the forestry sector could continue to go up and we would have more places to be able to use these products here in Canada.

The government cannot quite figure out how to take advantage of this strategic asset that we have.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook—Brant North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Feed Ontario's “Hunger Report 2025” came out in recent days, and the numbers were very shocking. We saw an increase in the number of seniors, working people and people with disabilities accessing food banks. I have a question for my colleague, who cited some of the disparities in the savings on taxes within this bill for single seniors and single parents.

The bill is called the making life more affordable for Canadians act. Does it accomplish that at all? What should have been done differently?

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Mr. Speaker, while there is little income tax relief in this bill, the cost of inflation and the cost of food continue to go up. I keep track of the price of butter, for example, and in just the last year, it has gone up $2 at my local grocery store.

There was an article by Policy Options magazine, entitled “Ten million Canadians live in food-insecure households. The federal budget doesn’t help them.” A quarter of Canadians are food insecure. This bill does nothing to help those Canadians be able to get out of that particular position. If the government was serious, this is the kind of thing it would look to address.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is one message that the Conservatives have for the Liberals when it comes to their overall approach in bills like Bill C-4: Get out of the way.

On the surface, the Liberals are selling Bill C-4 as a way of giving a tax break to 22 million Canadians, among other components. That is the headline. That is the label on the packaging. What is the fine print on the packaging? The Conservatives took a look. The fine print is about embedding this proposed tax break in the bigger picture of Liberal deficit spending.

We have just passed a new budget that runs a $78-billion deficit. The government is adding $90 billion in new spending. That is $5,000—

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order. First of all, I want to apologize to my colleague.

There are some technical problems. I very much appreciate all of my colleagues here, but the camera is not focused on the person speaking. I am sure a lot of people have noticed. It reminds me of the good old days, when I was a TV journalist.

Maybe we can fix it right now.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

I thank the hon. member for his intervention. I am going to pause for just a second.

I ask the member to hold on for a brief intervention while I consult with the Table.

Sitting Suspended

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

What we are going to do at this point is suspend the House to the call of the Chair.

(The sitting of the House was suspended at 12:19 p.m.)

(The House resumed at 12:33 p.m.)

Sitting Resumed

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

Before we allow the member for Markham—Unionville to begin his statement, I ask whether he has the unanimous consent of the House to allow him to deliver his remarks from a seat that is not assigned to him.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is one message the Conservatives have for the Liberals when it comes to their overall approach in bills like Bill C-4: Get out of the way.

On the surface, the Liberals are selling Bill C-4 as a way to give a tax break to 22 million Canadians, among other components. That is the headline. That is the label on the package. What is in the fine print on this packaging? The Conservatives took a look. The fine print is about embedding this proposed tax break in the bigger picture of Liberal deficit spending.

We just passed a new budget running a $78-billion deficit. The government is adding $90 billion in new spending. That is $5,000 per Canadian household. Meanwhile, the tax break on offer for Canadians in Bill C-4 checks out to $90 per month. Anything on offer in the bill is already wiped out by interest on the Liberals' deficit spending. The central-planning Liberals are committed to interventionist tactics. We, as Conservatives, are simply asking them to get out of the way of hard-working Canadians so they can build our country strong.

We are in a shameful situation in this country, where over two million Canadians are visiting food banks every month. At the end of every month, paycheques are not going far enough. Why is that? The Liberals want to deflect and blame this solely on the trade deficit. However, there is a simple economic fact: When we create more units of currency and map them to an economy that is not meaningfully producing more units of goods and services, we get inflation. As a case in point, in the last five years, grocery prices have risen more than 20%. We cannot print our way out of economic stagnation. We are already in this situation because of all the deficit spending engaged in during the Trudeau years. Why are we doing more of the same?

How insulting it is to hard-working Canadians for the Liberals to create a macro situation where paycheques are not enough for food and rent, then pat themselves on the back for doling out welfare in various guises. It is no different from throwing rocks at household windows and offering window replacement services, or pushing us into a pool and offering us a floater, yet this is the world view of the interventionist, nanny-state central planners. The interest payments on our debt already exceed what is transferred to provinces for health care, yet the modus operandi of the nanny state is rather to add to this debt instead of simply letting the natural drive of hard-working Canadians carry our economy forward.

Instead of getting out of the way, the Liberals choose to continually stand in the way of a naturally productive, real economy. How can we meaningfully affect prices at the grocery store when the industrial carbon tax makes it harder to grow food, when the fuel standard makes it harder to ship food and when the packaging tax makes it harder to sell food? The Liberals operate in a system of intervention and then propose branded, one-shot measures to create the image of doing good by Canadians. If they stopped their environmentalist overreach, Canadians could do good by themselves.

I want to affirm, right now, that all parties in the House seem to me to be committed to making lives more affordable for Canadians. What separates us is not only our methods but also what we can call accumulated technical debt from previous approaches. No matter how many one-off, targeted measures the Liberals put on offer, they are weighed down by the second-order effects of having engaged in far too much deficit spending. The cumulative path of dependence on 10 years of out-of-control spending is a national situation where monthly income cannot meet monthly bills. Therefore, what we must address here is the root of the mindset behind all the deficit spending.

Allow me a moment to address how the Liberals could get out of the way and, in so doing, alter the course of Canada's affordability crisis. We can do this only by empowering hard-working Canadians to take the lead.

The first shift is one of mindset. Do the Liberals believe in the capacity of their fellow citizens? Do they believe in the entrepreneurs and businesses that move the needle economically in this country? If they do not, I completely understand why they are so attached to interventionist measures. It all makes sense. Otherwise, if the Liberals actually believe in the people, they should get out of the way and create opportunities for everyday Canadians to step up through grassroots initiatives.

The second shift consists of removing all the hidden taxes that pile onto the price of groceries. The Conservatives will keep on repeating this until the Liberals hear us: Remove the industrial carbon tax, remove the fuel standard and remove the packaging tax. When I say, “Get out of the way”, there is a very literal way to do this. Why are the Liberals hindering every single step of the grocery supply chain? Food is such a fundamental part of total monthly spending, and this is the one, single area where a concerted effort to get out of the way would yield genuine results. The Liberals do not need a history lesson from me, but one of the core drivers of the French Revolution was the elevated price of grain. There is no area where the Liberals should be more incentivized to get out of the way than the total supply chain that affects grocery prices. When it comes to food, the issue extends beyond partisanship. This is life or death.

Finally, the third shift is amplifying the power of a common Canadian paycheque. Canadians are already putting in the hours, day in and day out. Why can Canadians not afford basic necessities through the income they are already earning? It is an insult to every hard-working household to receive handouts after putting in an honest day's work. I believe the Liberals need to do some soul-searching around how they have created this macro trap where the average monthly salary is not enough to afford the average monthly bills.

The bottom line here is very clear: The $90-per-month benefit in Bill C-4 is wiped out by the $5,000-per-household cost of deficit spending in the new Liberal budget. If the Liberals want to address affordability, their first step should be tackling the basket of items in every Canadian's monthly spend: groceries. They can do this by stopping their nanny-state, central-planning interventions, stopping the industrial carbon tax, stopping the fuel standard and stopping the packaging tax.

My Liberal colleagues, please get out of the way of hard-working Canadians and have the conviction that people can make this economy thrive.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions.

The member mentioned clean fuel standards. I find it disappointing that the Conservative Party, at a time when canola farmers in this country and members of the Canola Council of Canada are talking about the importance of biofuel policy in driving domestic demand while there is uncertainty in the markets.

Can the member opposite explain why the Conservative Party is against the biofuel policy that helps support canola farmers, including in many of the ridings the Conservative Party represents?

Also, on China, we think it is important to engage as a government and to have conversations to remove the tariffs that are in place. The member for Simcoe North and other Conservative members have suggested that any engagement with China is a bad policy.

Would the member care to give his perspective on that, as well?

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if we look at what is happening today, we are seeing reciprocal tariffs between China and Canada. When Canada imposed a 100% tax on electric vehicles, China imposed reverse tariffs on Canada. What we need to look at is how effective the Liberal government has been in negotiating all the tariffs around the world, whether it is with China, the U.S. or Europe. We seem to be getting more tariffs rather than reducing them.

I would like to understand how the Liberal government is going to be addressing this and demonstrating to Canadians that it is working for Canadians.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, by officially scrapping the carbon tax, Bill C-4 confirms that Quebeckers were robbed.

The Liberal government decided to entice voters with compensation for the carbon tax, even though the tax had not even been levied for the period in question. This was funded through taxes paid by Quebeckers, meaning we lost $814 million.

What does my colleague think of that?

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is another demonstration of the Liberal government mismanaging the taxes it has collected. The so-called carbon tax, back then, was ineffective. It did not do anything for Canadians and did not do anything for carbon reduction. It is a reflection of the Liberal government's mismanagement.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my colleague could comment on the hypocrisy of the Liberals.

For a decade, they said that, if we did not believe in the carbon tax, the world would burn, and that if we were against the inflationary carbon tax, flooding and catastrophes would happen. Then they turned around and withdrew the carbon tax, saying that it was too inflationary.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for highlighting the fearmongering slogans the Liberal government used to scare Canadians. However, with the stroke of a pen, it was able to eliminate the tax, and the world did not crash.

How can we now believe that, with this budget and going forward, the Liberal government can continue to deliver benefits to Canadians?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this is interesting. Here we are debating Bill C-4, which would give a tax break to 22 million Canadians, get rid of the carbon tax for consumers and provide for getting rid of the GST for first-time homebuyers. One would think that this is something the Conservative Party of Canada could get behind and want us to pass.

Will the member give his personal commitment to try to get this thing passed before Christmas?

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the member had listened to my speech, I said that, for $90 a month, we end up with a $5,000 deficit for each household. In my simple math, that does not really work out well. When we look at the various components of this, eliminating one tax and then piling up other taxes would not benefit Canadians.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

Before we resume debate, I will inform the House that the technical issues with the broadcast appear to have been fixed. Going forward, members will be expected to speak from their assigned seats.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if I may, I will be sharing my time with the member for Berthier—Maskinongé.

To no one's surprise, the Bloc Québécois will oppose this bill, because it fails to meet Quebeckers' real needs in several respects.

Let us begin with the elephant in the room: the tax cut. No one can be against tax cuts, obviously, but it is all a matter of perspective. Currently, the maximum tax reduction for an individual taxpayer amounts to a savings of $4 a week this year and $8 a week in 2026. During the student strike, that would not even pay for one coffee a day. In other words, the taxpayer will receive a maximum of $210 in 2025.

This brings us back to a crucial question. What is Canada's financial position? Right now, the budget deficit is estimated at $78 billion. In the coming years, the government will be forced to take action by making cuts all over the place. Therefore, asking where this $210 in savings is going to come from is a legitimate question. If taxpayers have to resort to the private health care sector to get an appointment more quickly because of government cuts to health transfers, those savings disappear. If taxpayers see their rent go up because Ottawa fails to transfer money for housing to the provinces, those savings disappear. There is no shortage of examples of ways that those savings could disappear, whether through cuts to federal-provincial transfers or a reduction in the quality of public services following draconian cuts to certain key services. In short, these tax savings are interesting, but they will raise the cost of other services that taxpayers are entitled to receive. In essence, this tax cut is like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, these tax cuts will cost $28.2 billion over five years. That is a third of the current deficit. That is a lot of money for the government, money that could have been used to build more housing and to spur the construction of sports and recreation infrastructure in the regions, while promoting the use of lumber to reduce the impact on the forestry sector. That money could have been used to provide more support for first-time homebuyers. It could have been used to increase health transfers to improve services for our constituents, particularly seniors. It is all about choices and priorities.

This bill would also have a negative impact on some taxpayers because it is poorly drafted. For example, some seniors who are subject to the alternative minimum tax would see their tax burden increase. People who are entitled to certain non-refundable credits, like the disability tax credit or the medical expense tax credit, would lose out. Roughly 60,000 people would be affected by an increase in their taxes, even though they should be entitled to this tax cut.

This brings to mind a rather special situation in Quebec in recent years. Quebec has increased the Quebec pension plan to help seniors. Because that pension income went up, the guaranteed income supplement on the federal side went down. It is the poorest people who have been hit the hardest. Instead of adjusting the calculation in Quebec, the federal government is cutting services to seniors. I can say that my office is getting calls from seniors about this.

On top of that, the Bloc Québécois had specifically asked the government to help seniors with declining incomes by increasing old age security for seniors aged 65 to 74 to put them on an equal footing with those aged 75 and over. All we were really asking for is that the government stop discriminating based on age. The government decided to reject that measure after supporting it last year.

That brings me to the matter of the GST on new homes. Once again, this is a worthwhile measure with which we agree. However, we had to fight with the government, because it tried to reject our amendment that would have moved the effective date to March 20 of this year. That was the date on which the government announced its intention of eliminating the GST for first-time homebuyers, but the government turned around and decided to go with the date of May 27 for its bill. Clearly, there is a lack of consistency here that created a gap, and many young families fell through it.

I would also remind the House that first-time homebuyers are by definition tenants. In Quebec, leases expire on June 30. Keeping May 27 as the date caused problems for first-time homebuyers in Quebec, who had to find someone to assign their lease to, rather than simply notify their landlord that they would not be renewing it. Our amendment served a dual purpose: It sought to ensure the government's integrity and respond to Quebec's reality.

It would also have been a good idea for this government to make interest-free loans available to first-time homebuyers, as a way to help them put together a down payment more quickly so they could access home ownership faster. This would have enabled many Quebeckers to combine the benefits of the FHSA and these types of loans in order to purchase a property. This is a simple and effective measure that poses no danger to the government. The cost would have been low, and it would have helped stimulate the economy, particularly through housing construction. At the same time, it would have helped our forestry sector.

Before I wrap up, I must address another fundamental issue raised by this bill, and that is the government's decision to eliminate carbon pricing outside of Quebec through this bill without putting forward a single credible measure for offsetting the environmental damage that will result from this decision. As the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development clearly stated, the price on pollution was one of the few elements of the federal emissions reduction plan that was really working. Eliminating it was not only an environmental error, it was a political decision that flew directly in the face of the science, the facts and possibly, in the long term, the interests of Quebeckers and Canadians. Fortunately, Quebec will continue to play a role with its carbon market with California, which is still in place.

With climate change intensifying year after year, causing forest fires, floods, droughts and coastal erosion, the timing of this decision is profoundly irresponsible. Instead of strengthening one of the few tried-and-tested tools at our disposal, the government chose to weaken it for short-term political gain. Quebec will once again pay a steep price.

I would like to draw the House's attention to a very concrete example. In the summer of 2023, the Abitibi—Témiscamingue region and northern Quebec were among the areas hardest hit by forest fires. Thousands of residents, some 5,500 people, had to be evacuated from their homes. This tragic situation was not an isolated case. All across Canada, more than 10 million hectares burned that year, smashing previous records. The devastating fire that ravaged the Abitibi—Témiscamingue region is a striking illustration of what can happen when effective climate policies are abandoned in favour of short-sighted economic decisions.

When it eliminated the carbon tax outside of Quebec, the federal government also issued so-called rebate cheques to the residents of those provinces. The cheques were intended to offset a tax that in reality no longer existed. These payments were given out in the middle of an election campaign. They were basically election handouts paid for by all Canadian taxpayers. Quebeckers did not receive any of these cheques, but they still helped pay for them. In concrete terms, this represents a direct financial loss of $814 million for Quebec taxpayers. This is money that was taken directly from the pockets of Quebeckers and given out elsewhere in Canada. That is not responsible environmental or fiscal policy. It is an unfair transfer that penalizes Quebec for having established, well ahead of the rest of the country, an efficient and consistent carbon market through the greenhouse gas cap-and-trade system. The Quebec National Assembly voted unanimously to call for compensation for this injustice. The Bloc Québécois made it one of its pre-budget demands. However, the federal government refused, at committee and in public, to right this wrong or even acknowledge it.

A government cannot claim to be fighting climate change seriously and then ditch the only mechanism it had that actually reduced emissions. It cannot claim to respect Quebec while taking hundreds of millions of Quebec taxpayer dollars and sending them to provinces that have chosen not to join Quebec's carbon market. True environmental responsibility demands consistency, fairness and respect for the choices of provinces that lead by example. Bill C-4 fails on each of these counts.

By rejecting this bill, we are affirming our commitment, not only to the tax fairness that Quebeckers demand, but also to a responsible and sustainable vision of the environment. We refuse to sacrifice effective climate change fighting tools, which are verified by experts and have already proven to be effective, in favour of short-term political manoeuvring. By saying no to Bill C-4, we are saying yes to a future for generations to come, yes to consistency and yes to justice for Quebec.

I hope this vote will be considered not as a mere partisan gesture, but as a moral commitment to our constituents, our land and the rights of Quebeckers.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, what is clear is the government's position on three very important tax breaks for Canadians. That is what Bill C-4 is about: affordability and being there in a very real and tangible way for Canadians.

What is unclear is the positioning of the Bloc. I would be very interested in knowing this: Does the Bloc clearly support Bill C-4? Does it want Bill C-4 to pass before the end of the year?

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, I oppose Bill C-4 for obvious reasons. Yes, a cheque will be sent out that might amount to $210 for one fiscal year. However, I am a Quebec taxpayer, and scrapping the carbon tax will cost me more because health care costs are skyrocketing. Climate change is generating health care costs of $6 billion a year. That money will come out of the pockets of Quebeckers.

As for the carbon tax rebate that Canadians in the rest of Canada received, it was paid for by Quebeckers. We paid $814 million. Obviously, as a Quebec taxpayer, I am paying part of that amount, which the member for Winnipeg North will not admit.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my fellow committee member brought up a few things that the accountant in me likes to acknowledge, concerning the unintended consequences that happened with regard to the disability tax credit and to the seniors' supplement.

I am wondering if the member has any insight, from when he was looking at this, as to whether the Liberal government has actually taken into account any of the unintended consequences, if you have heard of any changes, and what you might suggest the government do with regard to these unintended consequences.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

I remind members to please address comments through the Chair.

The hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Yellowhead for his question and for the compassion and rigour he has shown on the two committees on which I serve. I really appreciate this member, especially because he talks about tax fairness in his speeches.

When it comes to seniors, I consulted with seniors in a dozen municipalities in Abitibi—Témiscamingue, including indigenous communities. The take-away from those consultations is that people feel as though they worked hard all their lives and yet many seniors are no longer able to make ends meet and have to do without. More and more seniors are couch surfing. Hidden homelessness is on the rise, and an increasing number of widows and widowers have to leave their homes because they can no longer afford to stay there. This is a very serious situation.

I do not think it would have been that difficult to increase seniors' income a little, but this government would rather cheap out on them.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, three weeks ago, we proposed all sorts of measures to help the forestry industry. On Friday, I learned that my riding of Laurentides—Labelle will also be affected. Groupe Crête, which has three mills, just announced that it is closing its mill in Mont-Blanc for three months as of January, and yet we have solutions.

Can my colleague tell us once again what we need to do to save our forestry industry?

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Laurentides—Labelle for emphasizing something so fundamental. Again, I will use the word cheap to describe the federal government. In Quebec, we have an industry that has been unstable for decades because of the crisis with the Americans. We are not in this situation just because of Donald Trump. This has been going on for decades because the federal government has not been doing anything about it. The government may have spent tens of millions of dollars over the years, but that is nothing compared to the tens of billions of dollars it invests in the oil and gas industry.

The forestry industry is in crisis. It needs help. The Bloc Québécois proposed that the government pay some of the countervailing duties and provide a wage subsidy to help businesses. That would have been so simple, but the federal government ignored that suggestion. It is cheap and meanwhile, people back home are losing their jobs. People throughout Quebec are losing their jobs. Temporary layoff notices are being issued just before Christmas. I think that is unacceptable. The solution is simple, and it does not involve giving another credit card to anyone about to declare bankruptcy.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise in the House, and I am very humbled to follow on from the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, with his great eloquence and the heart he puts into standing up for the residents of his region and of Quebec as a whole. I thank him very much for all he does.

As my colleague said, the Bloc Québécois is going to oppose Bill C-4. There is nothing surprising in that. Part 4 of the bill proposes amendments to the Canada Elections Act for British Columbia, which does not really concern us. In any event, we are in agreement on that matter. There is, of course, the tax on homes, with which we are also in agreement. We appreciate the changes that are being made.

There are, however, two big issues that were not changed by the government even though, as usual, the Bloc Québécois members worked like reasonable adults with the common good in mind. We proposed arrangements and amendments, but they were not accepted. We find ourselves in a position where we must oppose Bill C‑4, particularly due to the measure concerning the price on pollution. This will come as no surprise to my colleagues. I would like Canadians listening to this speech to take a moment to think. I am going to provide a fine example of the way populism can be harmful in politics.

The Conservatives and the Leader of the Opposition have succeeded so well in demonizing this measure through slogans—always repeating the same phrase, making repetitive little videos where they do not explain things and often do not even tell the truth—that this ended up taking root in the public's mind. People started saying that the carbon tax was a bad thing. However, what the Liberal government eliminated was the part that benefited those who are less well off, and that is the great irony here. Most people on lower incomes received more money back than they paid in carbon tax. By repeating all day every day that they wanted to build the homes, stop the crime and fix the budget, the Conservatives succeeded in taking money away from Canadians who are less well off. The Liberals were okay with that, as they used it to stay in power.

That is a damned good example of the dark side of what can happen in a parliament. It is incredibly sad. What makes matters worse and makes this situation even darker is the fact that the Liberals refused to pay back the $814 million they owe Quebeckers who had paid this money. This is completely unfair. To get elected, the current Prime Minister decided to pad the final cheque even though these rebates were being made in advance. People used to get a cheque every three months to compensate for what they were going to spend on carbon taxes over the next three months. Ninety per cent of the revenue collected through the carbon tax was returned to taxpayers. Not only did the Liberals yield under pressure, but they also dropped the ball on communication. It seems to me it would have been easy to defend that.

The Liberals got rid of the carbon tax and let rebate cheques go out at the beginning of the election campaign, a few days before the vote, for a tax that had already been eliminated and would not be paid. I cannot imagine that they had a right to do that. They just ended up giving out gift cards. The message the people heard was, “The generous Liberals cut us a cheque, so let us vote for them”. Money for that cheque came from the consolidated fund. The Minister of Finance or any other Liberal elected official can say what they want, but the fact is that the $814 million that Quebeckers paid into the consolidated federal fund was withdrawn and given to Canadians in the other provinces, and then they are saying that members of the Bloc Québécois are always complaining and that Quebec is part of confederation. That is but a small example of what we see each and every day. That is why Quebec needs to be independent.

This is really outrageous, and what is more, it hurts our own policies. We know that Quebec has always been forward-thinking. I apologize for saying this to my colleagues and I am sorry if that hurts them, but it is what it is. We are always ahead of the curve. We need only think about day cares, which we put in place 10 years ago. English Canada has just woken up and recognized that it is a good, so they are going to do the same.

Fortunately, this was on the eve of another election and we managed to get money for Quebec because had we been mid-way through a majority term, not only would the government have ran with our idea, but it would also have crushed our existing system and replaced it with its own because whatever comes from the federal Canada is always much better, right?

We are tired of that. Withdrawing from the environmental policy is affecting our carbon exchange. Quebec and California are the last jurisdictions in North America focusing on the future of our children and grandchildren. That is incredibly sad. I am not telling the people listening to us at home that we want to tax them or prevent them from putting gas in their cars. That is Conservative rhetoric. That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that we need to put reasonable and effective incentive measures that will work over the long term. This is working well in Quebec, as evidenced by the fact that Quebec has experienced the most significant development among Canadian provinces in recent years. It is funny that we are the only province with a carbon exchange. It cannot be all that bad. Moreover, it will be even better in the future because there are places around the world, including the European Union, that will start to put limits on what comes in from outside. They could tell countries that have not paid for pollution in their own area that they will have to pay for it before they can export anything to another country. Why can we not do the same thing here? Once again, I am quickly running out of time.

Let us turn to the tax cut. Initially, we were all happy with the tax cut. No one can be against that. Inflation is high, wages have not kept up with inflation, everyone is struggling to pay ridiculously high rent and interest rates are up. The government decided to offer a tax cut, which, although small, is not a bad thing. The difference is that before we vote on a measure, we study and we analyze, and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House does not seem to have done that, from what I can tell from the last question he asked my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

One thing became clear when we were analyzing this bill. I am not saying this just for the sake of it. I did not wake up one fine morning and get a light bulb moment and think it would be a good idea to say that this bill will hurt the poor or think that this would make a great argument. Other political parties do that. The Parliamentary Budget Officer—a reliable, solid and independent figure, one so independent we sometimes get the impression that the government would like to whittle away his powers—has told us the tax cut as designed is problematic for the most vulnerable individuals. Some seniors subject to the alternative minimum tax will see their tax burden go up instead of going down and some people who receive non-refundable tax credits, such as the disability tax credit, will also see their tax burden go up. How disgusting is that? People with disabilities will see their taxes go up.

It is the same thing when it comes to the medical expense tax credit. Those already burdened with high medical bills will face even greater expenses. Not all expenses will be covered and not everyone has good drug coverage. These tax credits will lose all value when calculated at the first tax bracket. This is appalling and it is disgusting. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, this will impact over 60,000 people. Could the government not have made a small amendment for these 60,000 individuals by amending a subsection here and there so that they are not impacted? I guess not, because the government is moving at speed and wants to have this bill passed before Christmas so they have something to brag about around the dinner table. They will have cut taxes with a bunch of empty words that mean nothing.

There lies the problem with this Parliament. There are people here putting up appearances. Is it possible to have real content? People will say that Bloc members are the bad guys because we are voting against tax cuts. Yes, but I do not think my constituents will be angry when I tell them that the cuts amount to less than four bucks a month for the least fortunate. Those same constituents will give me 20 bucks to put in Christmas hampers, because 'tis the season of giving. Berthier—Maskinongé celebrated Noël du coeur last weekend. We raised funds for some 140 families in Saint‑Jean‑de‑Matha and some 220 to 260 families in Louisville. These families will get food hampers throughout the year. Will I vote for a tax cut that will lower my own taxes and increase taxes for the least fortunate? The answer is no thanks, and better luck to them next time.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech this afternoon. I really enjoyed working with him at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food when I was there.

However, I would like to set the record straight regarding what he said in his speech about the government's decision to do away with consumer carbon pricing. We mainly did that to support bilingual people, respond to the needs of rural residents and protect vulnerable families who were worse off. That is exactly why the government replaced this measure with a tax cut in this bill. This measure is very important for Canadian and Quebec families.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Kings—Hants, who I really appreciate. He was right to bring this up, but I think that he is going to be disappointed with what I have to say. There are two things.

First, when he says that the government eliminated carbon pricing for individuals to replace it with something else, that is false, because it was not replaced with anything. No new environmental measures have been introduced. On the contrary, the Prime Minister has wiped out so many environmental measures that the architect of his environmental policies stepped down last week. It is a big deal when the environment minister steps down. I refuse to believe that this tax was replaced with something else.

It was replaced with a small tax cut of $200, or $4 a month, for less fortunate individuals. The main reason why my colleague and others agreed to it was that they were at risk of losing their ridings to Conservatives. That is the real reason when it comes right down to it. They realized that they had to get rid of the carbon tax in order to keep their jobs.

I would rather lose my job on a matter of principle than change a policy that is so important for the country.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague on his speech and on the comments he just made, but I would still like to ask him the following question.

The so-called architect of environmental policies that he mentioned earlier—obviously referring to the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie—was there six months ago when the government decided to get rid of the carbon tax. He was there when the government introduced and voted for Bill C-5, which allowed for last week's announcements.

Did the architect's conscience finally catch up to him, well after all the things he did in the past? We must not forget that he was elected by the people of his riding with a 17,000-vote majority after getting rid of the carbon tax, this government's flagship environmental measure.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate my colleague, who always has good, intelligent and well-thought-out questions.

I have to agree that, yes, he seems to have woken up. At the same time, I cannot criticize the guy. He was trying to change things from within.

There are two ways to work in politics. The first is to come in and toe the line, and the second is to try to get inside the system and make changes from within. I think what ultimately pushed the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie to resign was the cap on greenhouse gas emissions and the fact that generating electricity from thermal power plants in the west will now be permitted, but it will no longer be included in the pricing. Those things matter. I mentioned architecture earlier. There is not enough time to say very much in a 10-minute speech. I think that is what was so disappointing. Sooner or later, after swallowing so many bitter pills, the last one is too much to bear.

I have to say yes, that I agree in part with what my colleague just said, but I still—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

I must give the hon. member for Laurentides—Labelle a little time to ask a question in 30 seconds.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague whether he heard the response from Quebec's former finance minister when I asked him a question and told him that investments are assets and equipment. Investing in loans and in tax cuts is an economic lever, but no one can convince me that that is an investment, per se.

Would my colleague agree that the current budget is nothing more than smoke and mirrors to win votes?

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that was quite the assist. Yes, I agree with my colleague. Her comment basically demonstrates what I was saying in my speech.

I was saying that this government is all about looking and sounding a certain way. It talks about a generational budget, saying that it is an investment. However, when we scratch beneath the surface and take a closer look, it is clear that they are spending money and pretending that they have just bought a house. I am sorry, but people cannot go to the bank one morning to borrow money saying that they gave their brother-in-law $10,000 and claiming that is their collateral. It does not work that way. To provide collateral, they need to have an asset.

The finance minister's creative accounting is nonsense.

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my friend from Richmond—Arthabaska.

I rise today to speak on Bill C-4. Although this bill is inspired by the Conservatives' platform and promises, Bill C-4's collection of half measures does not deal with the real drivers of the affordability crisis: large deficits, high spending, and heavy taxation and regulation. We acknowledge the Liberals for admitting that certain measures are needed after 10 years of Liberal economic mismanagement, which has caused high inflation, doubled housing costs, and high food prices, and, on top of the pandemic pressures, has made life unaffordable for everyday Canadians. However, no matter how we slice it, Bill C-4's impact is too small compared to the previous tax increases, carbon pricing and other failed Liberal economic policies.

When I think about affordability, I think of the residents of Edmonton Northwest who have been hit hardest by Liberal policies that are out of touch with everyday Canadians. For seniors on fixed incomes, who are among the hardest hit by rising grocery, energy and housing costs, Bill C-4 does not provide targeted relief. Seniors are worried about being able to stay in their long-term care facilities or their own homes, or even being able to afford to be active in the community, such as at the Westend Seniors Activity Centre. I also think about the many others who are left out of Bill C-4: low-income, working-age adults who do not earn enough to pay income tax; people who pay large shares of their income on rent; people not old enough for OAS; food-insecure households who need more than hampers; women-led households with multiple children; uncompensated caregivers; people new to Edmonton Northwest; and the list goes on.

Food Banks Canada reports that food bank visits doubled since 2019 to about 2.2 million in March 2025. These are everyday, middle-class Canadians who are now relying on food banks. One in five clients is employed and one in three is a child, with 70% living in market-rent housing. The Liberal government's school lunch program ignores the two-thirds of individuals who rely on food banks who are not children. In their recent report, Food Banks Canada says, “the program does not directly address the structural causes of food insecurity”. Critics also say that this government is out to lunch:

The Carney government says its November budget empowers and invests in Canadians. But it lacks meaningful measures to reduce food insecurity—an important indicator of economic well-being and a strong predictor of poor physical health. It is therefore out of touch with the financial struggles that millions of Canadians face.

Eighty-three per cent of food banks say that “more affordable housing [is] the single most important policy intervention”, which is up from 61% in 2019. Low-income households are now spending about 66% of their disposable income on shelter. Instead of flowing funds to the many urban and indigenous organizations, who have plans and shovels ready to address housing, the government wants to put more money to grow the Ottawa bureaucracy it promised to cut.

Existing renters, especially in big cities, see little in Bill C-4 that addresses their rent increases this year. This is yet another example of elite-banker policies that are disconnected from the realities faced by everyday Canadians. Supply-side housing measures, such as Build Canada Homes and the GST rebate on new rental housing, will take years to see more new homes built. They also do not compare to the stated need for 500,000 homes per year and do not immediately lower rents for current tenants.

In Edmonton Northwest, these measures structurally leave out a growing group of residents who can only afford to rent. Record rents and huge mortgages benefit banks, institutional investors, property management companies and other friends of the Prime Minister. The government has no serious plans to help young people who struggle to build their lives or to restore affordability. While young people are looking to move into affordable starter homes, house-rich but cash-poor seniors are paying ever-increasing property taxes on homes they cannot afford to live in or sell.

Announcing the concept of a plan for housing at Build Canada Homes without money and programs on the ground only delays investments that could be made today in the hope that government will subsidize some of the costs. This is just another example in the government's suite of affordability failures and half measures.

We have heard from stakeholders that the dental care plan requires significant new red tape on the part of dental professionals, who are already in short supply. Being modelled on the non-insured health benefits program for indigenous peoples means that this dental care program will more strongly favour the minority of Canadians who are lucky enough to have practitioners who will spend hours or sometimes days on the phone with the insurer to advocate persistently for the basics of medically necessary treatments for their patients. On the other hand, this will give Canadians a taste of the disastrous bureaucratic inequities that many indigenous people face daily.

We have heard directly from persons with disabilities that the Canada disability benefit and the entire system for enrolling into the federal program is a nightmare for taxpayers and practitioners. The government has built massive paperwork and inconsistent bureaucracies, where somehow we put CRA instead of medical professionals in charge of determining who does or does not have a disability. The Auditor General found that CRA was unreliable even for tax information. Why would vulnerable Canadians trust CRA on medical matters?

Now I will speak to the few positives of Bill C-4. Bill C-4 would finally repeal the consumer-facing carbon tax, after nearly a decade of stumbling around. I am glad the government has finally listened and admitted its cornerstone climate policy failed, but that has not changed its overall spending and regulatory approach. It had the power to fix the carbon tax without a bill years ago, but waited to maximize political benefit over the needs of Canadians. Household goods and services that have the industrial carbon tax baked in are not suddenly going to be less expensive.

Many car-dependent workers and families in Edmonton Northwest will certainly benefit. Tradespeople, delivery drivers, warehouse and logistical workers, health care staff and others commuting by car from the northwest into other parts of the city will feel the immediate gain from lower fuel charges at the pumps brought on by the lobbying efforts of the Conservative Party, but that leaves out the lowest-income Albertans who cannot afford to drive or have no jobs to drive to. Those are some of the people the Liberals exploited to champion the carbon tax years ago with the promise of rebates.

This new automatic tax-filing program will probably increase the take-up of benefits, which matters a lot for very low-income households who currently do not file. We heard from students studying in health fields that couch surfing without a permanent address to file taxes remains a top concern, just as it would be for some of the folks who would gain the most from access to benefits.

Going forward, how can Canadians trust the same Liberal government that saddled current and future generations for the last decade to fix what it has broken? The Prime Minister promised to get tariffs fixed in July, and now Liberals are promising to make life more affordable. This is another promise they are poised to break.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about Bill C-4, obviously we are talking about the carbon tax. The point is that when we talk about the carbon tax, we are talking, sincerely and correctly, about the exploitation of all kinds of energy and natural resources.

Can the member inform the House about his experience as a leader of his community in terms of natural resources? Can he share with the House his experience with his community and the federal and provincial governments?

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, certainly in my experience as the chief of my community, we always had the paternalistic aspect of the federal government with Indian Oil and Gas oversight of how we developed our resources. There always seemed to be some kind of hidden motivation there when it came to limiting access to the resources back directly to the community or whether it was negligence on its part to actually regulate.

Again, this is the same federal government that is administering a carbon tax for the whole country with the same principles and the same bureaucracy. I do not trust it to be any better at making life more affordable by keeping these same policies in place.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I found my hon. colleague's remarks to be balanced. Obviously, there were moments when he critiqued, but remarkably, he talked about some things that are positive in the bill, which gives me confidence that he will hopefully see this bill through before Christmas.

There are a couple of things I want to highlight. It was the Atlantic caucus and the rural caucus of the Liberal Party that helped make the adjustments and changes to the consumer carbon tax. On carbon pricing in this country, again, to change the record, we allow provinces to do that. Premier Danielle Smith made it very clear during her UCP address that it is the provincial government that actually controls the carbon pricing at the industrial level in the province.

Will the member support passing this bill before Christmas? It is urgent that we get this through for Canadians. He highlighted some of the positive aspects. Will he talk to the House leader and whip of his party to see this bill pass before Christmas?

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, proper due diligence is still required on this bill. As mentioned, it has several shortcomings. It did do a few good things when it came to the consumer carbon price, but at the end of the day, I still think it was this side of the House that advocated for that and made it happen for Canadians. We will still do our due diligence on this side of the House, and we will see what happens to make life more affordable for Canadians. In the first place, it should have happened a long time ago. Canadians should have had a Christmas in 2025 that was more affordable, instead of having the one of the last 10 years, which was set up to fail by the Liberal government.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Edmonton Northwest. I particularly appreciative his very sensible contributions to the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs and the role he plays as a first nations member in ensuring that the voice of first nations is heard in the House.

Bill C‑4 does not put forward anything specific for first nations, yet the needs are enormous. The government is saying that cutting taxes, eliminating the carbon tax and other measures will have a huge impact on the budget deficit. These are funds that could have been invested in communities.

What impact will this really have? What measures would my colleague have liked to see put in place to help his community and many others across Quebec and Canada?

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I like serving with my colleague on committee as well, but that aside, as for his question today, nothing in this current bill, Bill C-4, addresses first nations. The current Liberal government is doing cutbacks on the ISC budget to the tune of over $2 billion. In addition to that, it has zeros across the board for years to come when it comes to reconciliation. I find, again, that first nations are being left out. The excuse from the government is that it will consult them on Zoom, but nothing is ever going to happen. It is all reconciliation rhetoric from the Liberal government.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member could provide his thoughts on his own leader's position in regard to a pipeline going through the province of British Columbia. The leader of the Conservative Party believes he does not need indigenous consent or the consent of the Province of B.C.

What are the member's thoughts in regard to his leader's commitment to not consult with indigenous people?

[Billy Morin, Conservative, Edmonton Northwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, our leader has never said anything as of such. We certainly have section 35 rights. Nobody has ever talked against those rights. I think it is the leader's position that the Liberal government has said it will do consultation half-assed, therefore setting this project up for failure. It had eight months to do this one-on-one engagement. It is only now saying it is going to be done through Zoom in the months coming forward. I have no faith in the government to get reconciliation done in order to get a pipeline built.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today, we are here to talk about Bill C-4, which seeks to make life more affordable for Canadians. My Conservative colleagues and I supported Bill C-4 at second reading. I think that all members agree that we need to put more money back in taxpayers' pockets. Since 2015, everything costs more and Canadians are working harder for every dollar they earn. It is more important than ever for the government to take measures to support our workers, our families and our seniors during this cost-of-living crisis.

It is especially important to help Canadians who continue to struggle because of food inflation. It is becoming more and more difficult to put food on the table. A father told us that he and his wife eat only if there is any food left after their children have eaten. Who here has ever said that they would eat if there was any food left? There are people out there right now who are saying that. That breaks my heart. We need to do everything in our power to put money back in the pockets of these men and women so that they can earn a decent living and support their families.

According to the food price report published by the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, 80.6% of Canadians say that food is the main source of financial stress and 25.5% of Canadians are food insecure. That is one in four. The average family of four is going to spend $800 more this year on groceries than it did in 2024. According to Food Banks Canada, the number of Canadians visiting food banks reached a record high of 2,165,766 visitors in March 2025.

Food Banks Canada has even said that “employment is no longer a reliable buffer against poverty”. What does that mean? That means that even Canadians who have a job are not immune to food insecurity. Among those experiencing food insecurity—one in four—are those who work full time and are still struggling. People in my community and all across the country are working hard, but the Liberal government's endless spending continues to make livelihoods unaffordable.

I have the privilege of serving as a member of the Standing Committee on Finance and the Conservative members of the committee proposed several amendments to Bill C-4. This bill essentially incorporates three of the Conservative Party's election pledges. It lowers income tax, offers a tax rebate on new homes and eliminates the consumer carbon tax. The difference is that we want to go further.

First, the bill reduces the tax rate from 15% to 14%. We proposed reducing it from 15% to 12.75%. Our proposal would have saved Canadians $900 per year instead of $420. As costs continue to rise, Canadians deserve a bigger tax cut so they can buy the food they and their families need. Unsurprisingly, the Liberals rejected our amendment. I also want to mention that, during committee proceedings, the Liberals systematically filibustered this amendment for over an hour, proving how reluctant they are to lower taxes.

Second, our Conservative team proposed expanding the tax rebate on new homes. Bill C‑4 proposes a rebate, but only on new homes that are first homes. What we are proposing is that this rebate apply to all Canadians who purchase a new home. This would stimulate the construction industry, ease pressure on the housing market, and provide significant assistance to Canadians. On this side of the House, that is what we believe is needed.

We did everything in our power during the housing crisis to call for more affordable housing and more construction using this approach, but unsurprisingly, the Liberals refused.

Third, we proposed permanently axing the consumer carbon tax and the industrial carbon tax, which make life less affordable. The Conservatives were ready to do that. Unsurprisingly, the Liberals rejected that proposal.

The Liberals took one tiny step forward to alleviate the cost of living crisis by introducing Bill C-4. However, they took several steps backward when they tabled this budget. The Conservatives consulted Canadians and then recommended priorities that should be included in the budget to address the cost of living, such as bringing down the deficit, eliminating the taxes on groceries and ending the inflationary taxes. Unfortunately, but once again unsurprisingly, the budget did not address these priorities. Instead, the Liberals chose not to tackle the issue of affordability. They decided to use our children's, grandchildren's and great‑grandchildren's credit cards. They decided to spend, spend, spend, spend and run a $78-billion deficit.

The federal bureaucracy has increased by 80% since 2015 when the Liberals came to power, yet services have not improved. Instead of reining in the inflationary spending that keeps making the cost of living crisis worse, the government continues to favour bureaucracy over affordability. Taxpayers continue to bear the cost of these deficits. Interest on the public debt will reach $55.6 billion in 2025–2026. Each and every Canadian will owe approximately $1,350 in interest. It will cost $1,350 per person in interest alone.

Personally, I am still stunned that the Liberals decided not to tackle the cost of living in their budget. However, the Prime Minister decided that it would be a good idea to lower taxes on luxury items, more specifically, the tax on private yachts, instead of focusing on removing the taxes on groceries. We are talking about priorities. As the Prime Minister has shown, his priority was the luxury tax on private yachts.

Meanwhile, a record number of people are using food banks. Household budgets are getting tighter and tighter. The cost of housing is extremely high. Everything is more expensive, yet the government is lowering taxes on private yachts.

In committee, the Liberals had a chance to support our amendments to lower taxes for all Canadians. The Liberals had a choice: They could lower taxes for workers and families or they could lower taxes for private yacht owners. They chose to help private yacht owners.

Canadians are worried. Food costs more. Housing costs more. Everything costs more. Bill C-4 aims to make life more affordable, but we would like to see it go even further. We have made proposals. I hope that the Liberals will listen to our suggestions to finally help Canadians make ends meet.

On this side of the House, our priority will always be to help make life in this magnificent country of Canada safer and more affordable for Canadians and their families.

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is always fearmongering.

Since his colleague did not have an opportunity to answer the question, can he tell us today whether his party is going to support this bill in the House?

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, we made some proposals to the Liberal government to take it a step further. We need to cut taxes even more so that we can put money back in the pockets of Canadians. That is what we are going to propose.

We also wanted to eliminate the industrial carbon tax. We made some proposals on this side of the House. The ball is now in the Liberals' court.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this bill is poorly thought out. The government is offering a tax cut, but at the same time, this means higher taxes for some seniors and some people with disabilities.

What does my colleague think about these flaws in the bill?

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as everyone knows, members on this side of the House want to significantly reduce taxes so that all Canadians will have more money in their pockets to help them cope with the cost-of-living crisis.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I was reading in the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report about the tax break the Liberals are supposedly giving to people. For a couple with a child, if they are both in the first income tax bracket, it would amount to only about $20 a month in savings for that family. When I look at the cost of groceries, I see that the cost of butter alone is up two dollars. If people are using butter for cooking and different things, they would eat into the $20 savings pretty quickly. A person could spend that amount just on butter alone in a year.

I am wondering what my colleague has to say about the cost of living and about how the so-called affordability bill would not actually go far enough to help Canadians with the affordability crisis.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what we proposed.

Currently, Bill C‑4 does not go far enough to put more money back in taxpayers' pockets. The proposed tax cut amounts to about $400 per year, which is not enough. We need to go further to put more money back in taxpayers' pockets. That is what the Conservatives will propose.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I heard my colleague talk about the importance of agriculture, agri-food and our farmers. However, I was a bit surprised because there was absolutely nothing in the Conservative Party's platform last April for farmers across the country. My colleague represents a rural riding in Quebec. He can influence the Leader of the Opposition and the Conservative Party to include more measures for farmers in their platform for the next election. That is crucial for the country.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, and I also want to thank him for making the effort to ask it in French. I really appreciate that.

I want to reassure my colleague that when it comes to supply management, the Conservatives and the Quebec Conservative caucus will be there to protect farmers and support them in the future. To reiterate what I say in every one of my speeches, agriculture is about what we put on our plates morning, noon and night. I would like to take this opportunity to thank farmers, who work 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, to feed Canada.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Beauport—Limoilou.

I rise today to speak to Bill C-4, the making life more affordable for Canadians act.

For over a decade, I have had the enormous privilege and honour of representing the amazing people of my constituency of Davenport. It is a riding in the heart of downtown west Toronto, and it is home to 120,000 residents. It is a community that I love deeply. It is vibrant, diverse and hard-working. It is home to Canada's largest Portuguese community. It is also home to artists, entrepreneurs, newcomers and families whose roots stretch back generations. It is from their kitchen tables, their small businesses and their community centres that I draw both my purpose and my perspective.

We are living through what our Prime Minister has rightly called a rupture. It is not merely a transition, but a sharp change in a short period of time. The global order that has shaped our prosperity for decades is shifting beneath our feet. Trade relationships are being rewritten, alliances are being tested and our citizens are feeling the pressure. As the Prime Minister said in a pre-budget address, “if we don’t act now, the pressures will only grow.”

Bill C-4 is one of the many ways our government is acting. It is how we are responding to this moment: not with half measures, but with meaningful relief that puts money back in the pockets of Canadians who need it most.

I want to be direct about the reality Canadians are facing. According to Abacus Data polling from just last week, 64% of Canadians now name the cost of living as their number one concern, which is the highest level recorded this year. Some two-thirds of Canadians worry about affording the basics in the next six months. As the Abacus CEO put it, “the cost of living continues to be the dominant lens through which Canadians evaluate politics and policy.” We hear Canadians and we are responding, not just via Bill C-4, but through the plan and the numerous measures found in budget 2025.

Let me tell members what these national numbers look like in my riding of Davenport. The median household income is $85,000, which is close to the Toronto average, but 41% of our renter households spend more than 30% of their income on shelter. That is the definition of housing stress. More than 10% of the residents in my riding live in low income housing. Nearly half of my constituents rent their homes, many of which are in buildings constructed more than 60 years ago.

Davenport is also profoundly shaped by immigration, as 43% of my constituents were born outside of Canada. Another 30% are second-generation Canadians. They came here, as my family did, believing in the promise that hard work would lead to a better life. That promise must continue to mean something. Bill C-4 would deliver on that promise through three concrete measures.

First, we would cut taxes for the middle class. The lowest federal income tax bracket would drop from 15% to 14%. It would drop to 14.5% for 2025 and then to 14% permanently. This would benefit nearly 22 million Canadians. For a two-income family, that would mean up to $840 more in their pockets every single year. In my riding of Davenport, where 77% of our population is of working age, this would be direct relief for the people who power our economy.

Second, we would make home ownership possible again. The first-time homebuyers' GST rebate would eliminate GST on new homes priced up to $1 million and provide partial relief on homes priced up to $1.5 million. For a young couple in Davenport dreaming of their first home, this would mean savings of up to $50,000. In a city where housing has become a barrier to building a life, we are opening a door.

Third, we are lowering everyday costs. By permanently removing the consumer carbon price, we are reducing what Canadians pay at the pump and to heat their homes. For the seniors in Davenport living on fixed incomes, and for the small business owners watching every dollar, this is real, immediate relief. It started earlier this year, on April 1, and will continue to provide ongoing savings.

I want to speak to why these measures matter beyond the immediate dollars and cents and why strengthening our middle class is a matter of national security.

Just over a week ago, I had the privilege of attending the Halifax International Security Forum, alongside defence ministers, parliamentarians, security experts and others from around the world. The theme this year was dialogue, decency and democracy, and the message that echoed through every session was clear: Democracy has everything to do with international security. We heard that the foundations of democracy are showing cracks. We heard that democracies cannot meet external threats unless they are working internally, and we heard a truth that has been understood since Aristotle wrote his seminal book, Politics, more than 2,000 years ago: A strong middle class is the bedrock to a stable democracy.

This is not abstract political theory. The OECD has documented that thriving middle classes are the backbones of democratic societies and strong economies. Through their consumption, their investment in education and housing, their support for quality public services, their intolerance of corruption and their trust in democratic institutions, the middle class provides the very foundations of inclusive growth. Aristotle himself observed that democracies are safer and more permanent when they have an abundant or numerous middle class with a greater share in government. When there is no middle class, he warned, trouble arises and the state soon comes to an end.

Canada has always understood this. We have always invested in our middle class, not as a luxury but as a necessity. We have always ensured that those working hard to get ahead are given more than just hope. They are given opportunity. They are given a fair chance. Bill C-4 would continue that proud tradition.

Let me be clear: These three measures alone would not solve every challenge. Budget 2025 contains a comprehensive suite of investments in housing, in skills, in innovation and in defence that together would move us forward. Bill C-4 is a critical piece of that plan, with direct, immediate relief that would reach Canadians where they need it most. It is how we would ensure that Canadians have the resources to participate fully in our democracy and in our economy.

I am acutely aware that what we say in this chamber is recorded for history. Students will one day study this period, this moment of rupture and response, and they will ask whether we rose to meet the challenges of our time. I believe Bill C-4 is one of the many parts of how we answer “yes”. In my community, I think of Adelina, someone who lives on my street. She is a senior on a fixed income. She lives in Little Portugal, and she is going to be seeing lower heating costs this winter. I think of Carlos and Ana, second-generation Canadians saving for their first home, who will now be able to afford the down payment they never thought possible. I think of the small business owner in Dundas West who will keep more of what she earns to invest in her shop and her employees. I think of the young family in Junction Triangle, newcomers who chose Canada because they believe in its promise and who deserve a government that delivers on that promise.

I will be supporting Bill C-4 and I encourage all members of the House to do the same.

In my constituency of Davenport, we have a saying.

[Member spoke in Portuguese]

[English]

It means, together we are stronger. Let us be stronger together.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, this bill would reduce taxes for people, yes. We have already heard it is probably like $20 a month, so it is not a really big deal. If this government was truly serious about saving money and saving taxpayer money, I wonder if the member would consider changing the federal interim health benefits that asylum seekers get when they are denied asylum in Canada but are trying to stay on by appealing that decision. I mean benefits like vision care, urgent dental care and dental exams, dentures, nursing visits and emergency ambulances. Of course they would get basic health coverage, which we would agree with, but these extra benefits that asylum seekers who have been told to leave the country get are a way this government could save a significant amount of money and pass those savings on to Canadian citizens.

I am wondering why the government does not do that.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his great work on the citizenship and immigration committee. He started off by saying that there is minimal savings through our middle-class income tax cut. I completely disagree with this statement. For a two-income family, it is $840 more in their pockets every single year. As someone who grew up in a working-class family, $840 extra a year would be a life change for us. It would mean a lot. It would actually buy us a lot more. If there was ever a family that knew how to use its dollars and put them to use effectively, it would be a working-class family or a middle-class family in Canada.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised in March to provide first-time homebuyers with a GST rebate on new homes. When we came back to Parliament after he was elected, he made the GST rebate effective only as of May in the original version of Bill C-4, which meant that thousands of homebuyers who believed what the Prime Minister said were ineligible for the GST rebate. The Bloc Québécois proposed amendments to the bill, but the Liberals opposed those amendments. They rejected them. We made our case to the Speaker and, finally, thanks to the Bloc Québécois, thousands of first-time homebuyers will get their GST rebates.

Can my colleague tell me why the Liberal Party of Canada opposed, both in committee and here in the House, before the Speaker, GST rebates for thousands of first-time homebuyers on new homes? We are talking about Canadians who are having a hard time getting into the housing market.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the first-time homebuyers' GST rebate in Bill C-4 would help thousands of people who want to buy their first home, and it would be a very effective tool.

I will also say that in budget 2025, we are investing an additional $25 billion. We are determined to increase housing supply in this country, and we are trying to increase housing supply across the whole spectrum of housing. With this period of heavy investment at all levels of government, home ownership or being able to live affordably in this country will soon be a possibility for every single Canadian.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, within Bill C-4 is a tax break for over 22 million Canadians. It deals with the consumer carbon tax by getting rid of it. It also provides a tax exemption for first-time homebuyers. All of these are wonderful measures dealing with issues like affordability.

I am wondering if my colleague could provide her thoughts on how important it is that we pass this legislation. Would it not be nice to have it pass before Christmas?

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I truly believe that the three measures contained in Bill C-4 would be very beneficial for all Canadians because they would provide direct, immediate relief that will reach Canadians where they need it most. It would be an early Christmas gift that we could provide to all Canadians.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked in her speech about how a family could save up to $840 with the Liberals' tax break, but at the end of the day, a couple with children making about $75,000 a year would realize only about $20 in savings with this tax cut. In fact, a single parent making $50,000 would realize only about $140 or $150 in savings with this tax cut.

I am wondering how the Liberals can square this. They are trying to sell the bill as having big, grand savings for people, but the reality is that the people who need it the most would be receiving the least amount of benefit. How can the member sell this to her constituents?

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is not just that we are providing this tax cut, which I believe will put more immediate funds into the pockets of 22 million Canadians; over the last 10 years, we have introduced the Canada child benefit, national child care and the dental care plan. We have introduced a whole series of measures that are supporting our families and helping them live affordable lives and—

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We will now move on to Statements by Members.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-4, An Act respecting certain affordability measures for Canadians and another measure, be read the third time and passed.

Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Act

[Steeve Lavoie, Liberal, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to speak to Bill C‑4, the making life more affordable for Canadians act.

I am pleased to rise today to proudly represent the people of Beauport—Limoilou. It is the proudest and most beautiful riding in Canada. Representing it is the greatest honour I have ever been given. Beauport—Limoilou is made up of young families, workers and seniors who believe that we need strong leadership to build, protect and empower our country.

What we are doing here is not theoretical. It is not a discussion among financial experts. This bill directly affects what goes in the fridges and gas tanks of families in my riding of Beauport—Limoilou, as well as the rents and mortgages they pay. I want to be clear from the outset: This bill is good for us. It is good for families, workers, students and seniors. It is good for all Canadians.

First, there is the middle class tax cut. Bill C-4 will reduce the tax rate for the first income bracket from 15% to 14%. That means nearly 22 million Canadians will end up with more money in their pockets. That represents more than 50,000 people in Beauport—Limoilou with more money in their pockets. In Beauport—Limoilou, people in the 25- to 64-year age group make up 58% of the population. The measures we are talking about today affect them directly.

The average and moderate incomes in a riding like mine, Beauport—Limoilou, remind us of the importance of social support and affordability measures, whether in terms of housing, transportation or services.

This tax cut has been in effect since July 1, 2025. Across Canada, it will put more than $27 billion over five years back into the pockets of Canadians. Middle-class taxpayers will benefit the most. About 85% of these amounts will go to taxpayers in the two lowest tax brackets. Almost half will go to those in the lowest tax bracket, made up of people with a taxable income of $57,375 or less in 2025. After just five months, people are already seeing the difference directly on their paycheques.

Of course, no one has called me to complain. Instead, people are calling to thank us for that decision. For many people in Beauport—Limoilou, that means up to $420 a year, and $840 for a two-income household. That $420 can pay for groceries for a week or for part of the rent. It means a parent can enrol a child in a sporting activity. Above all, it is a clear choice to reduce the tax burden on the middle class. This is not symbolic. It is concrete and immediate.

Second, we are eliminating the GST on the purchase of a first home. In my riding of Beauport—Limoilou, I have met many young people who are working hard and saving money, but their dream of home ownership was slipping away because costs are too high. Bill C-4 completely eliminates the GST on the purchase of a first new home worth up to $1 million. This could mean as much as $50,000 in savings. The average house price in Beauport—Limoilou is about $450,000, so this will mean $22,500 in savings. That is huge. Everyone knows that that is huge for a young couple.

This measure applies to houses, condos, duplexes, mobile homes and co-op housing. It will encourage the construction of new housing. It will increase supply, including in my riding of Beauport—Limoilou. This measure acts on both sides of the problem, meaning both supply and demand. It is smart public policy.

All of this is combined with the acceleration of housing construction in Canada. Our government knows that we need to build more housing more quickly in this country.

Third, the bill permanently repeals the consumer carbon pricing law, which, I would remind members, was already repealed last April. As many will recall, the government ended the federal fuel charge through regulatory action. Some may wonder why a bill is being introduced now if the levy is no longer in effect. The answer is simple. We must finish the job. By repealing the legislative provision, we are sending a clear and unambiguous message to consumers and businesses: Carbon pricing for consumers will not return. This provides stability, predictability and certainty. What is more, the government has also removed the requirement for provinces and territories to impose a carbon tax on consumers. Here again, we are doing what we said we would do. We are walking the talk, as they say.

However, let me be very clear. Pollution pricing for large emitters remains in place, and that is key. It is one of the pillars in our plan to build a strong, modern and sustainable economy. These industrial pricing systems are designed to minimize costs, protect the competitiveness of our industries and encourage investment in clean technologies. These investments will reduce emissions and create the green jobs of tomorrow. Our government has been clear, and I want to reiterate that today. Large emitters must continue to pay their fair share. Industrial pricing will remain a central element of our economic and environmental plan.

I want to be clear. The tangible impact that Bill C‑4 will have on Beauport—Limoilou includes things like more money in workers' pockets, more workers who can become homeowners, lower energy bills, better protection of personal information and more financial stability for families. This is a bill that affects everyday life—not in 10 years, not as a promise, but now. It is a bill that has been studied, analyzed and debated. It is a well-thought-out bill. It is proof of the serious work that has been done. It is proof that this bill is sound. It is proof that it deserves the support of all MPs who represent communities like mine. It is a vision for the future.

Creating affordability is not just about solving a present-day problem. It is about allowing families to look to the future, to make plans and to invest in their children, their neighbourhood and their community. Bill C-4 gives them the space they need to breathe, dream and build. That is exactly what my constituents need. I want to send my constituents in Beauport—Limoilou a direct message, and it is simply this: This bill is good for us. It was designed for our reality, for our budget and for our future. Sending me to Ottawa was not just a symbolic gesture. It was a mandate for action. Today, with Bill C-4, this mandate has become concrete action.

In closing, I am proud to repeat that this bill is good for Canada. It gives renewed hope to the middle class, opens a door to home ownership, makes life more affordable and energizes our families. For these reasons, I firmly support Bill C-4 on behalf of all the people I am honoured to represent in the riding of Beauport—Limoilou.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, at the very end, my colleague talked about how Bill C-4 would give new hope to the middle class and how they are going to be able to afford things. The Parliamentary Budget Officer says this Liberal tax cut, which is going to give so much new hope, for a single senior living by themselves, would be 13¢ a day in a tax reduction. A single parent would get 38¢ a day under this new tax regime.

How much hope is the government going to give to someone for 38¢ a day? How much hope does 13¢ a day purchase?

[Steeve Lavoie, Liberal, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-4 is good for the middle class. We are lowering the tax rate for the first income bracket from 15% to 14%. This will save each family up to $840. This practical measure has been in place since July 1, with the money going straight into people's pockets. It affects them directly. It is combined with all the other measures in the budget.

The entire population is therefore affected by the budget and by Bill C-4, which take direct action. What is interesting is that these are not promises and they are not things that are going to happen a year from now. People have been benefiting from these measures since July 1. The same applies to the purchase of first homes.

In my riding, this will help more than 50,000 people. That is huge. People tell me when I see them. They thank me for doing this, because they have the money in their pockets right away.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, there are some good things in Bill C-4, but basically it is a collection of election promises, including the tax cut. My colleague must know that the amounts of many of the tax credits received by the most vulnerable members of our society, including the disability tax credit, are calculated based on the tax rate for the lowest tax bracket. That means that, under Bill C-4, people who are getting the disability tax credit, among others, will actually lose income. They will lose more in the value of their tax credit than they will save from the tax cut.

Is this not a sign that the government designed this measure in a hurry, that it pulled this together at the last minute? Why did the government forget about these people? Why did the government need the opposition to remind it in committee that people with disabilities will be paying rather than getting a tax cut? When these people tried to contact the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, why did no one respond to their emails and phone calls? The Bloc Québécois finance critic had to personally put them in touch with the minister.

[Steeve Lavoie, Liberal, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to hear my colleague say that there are good measures in Bill C-4. I am pleased to hear him say that there is a collection of good measures. That makes me really happy.

I have had the opportunity to work with my colleague on several committees. What is important here are the people who are affected. In my riding, more than 50,000 people are directly affected. In the 18-to-64 age group, more than 58% of people are affected by Bill C-4. It affects them directly. Think of first-time homebuyers. My 30-year-old son bought his house four years ago. He would have loved to get a GST rebate of more than $22,500. We are thinking of people. We are thinking of young people. We are thinking of seniors.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, regarding Bill C-4, how can Bloc Québécois and Conservative members expect to be taken seriously when they say one thing in the House and do another when it comes time to assume their responsibilities?

Do Quebeckers not deserve to finally find out whether these parties are choosing to stand on principle or whether they are choosing to score easy political points?

[Steeve Lavoie, Liberal, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his passion. What is important here is to highlight all the measures that are helping many segments of our society. In Beauport—Limoilou, the benefits are direct, quick and immediate. As soon as we took office, we implemented measures right away. As of July 1, people saw the rebate on their paycheques. That is concrete action.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today. Before I start, I will mention that I will be sharing my very valued time with my colleague from Brandon—Souris.

I am rising today to talk about Bill C-4 and its various issues. I will start with the tax cut first. I am a big fan of Milton Friedman, who is famous for the line, “I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances...for any reason, whenever it's possible.” I actually had a watch done up on with that slogan and a picture of Milton. I agree with that very much, but when Milt Friedman mentioned this, he had the assumption that the tax cut would come with an accompanying cut in spending, or a reduction in spending somewhere.

Unfortunately, with the government, we have a minor tax cut, which is going to cost the Treasury billions, and it is all borrowed money. The Liberals seem to have a reverse Milt Friedman attitude. It is to spend more, but instead of finding a balance, borrow more. Eventually, every penny of this tax cut, minor as it is, is going to be paid for by the next generation, the generation after that, the generation after that, and on and on.

Now, when listening to the government, including those in the House today, one would think this tax cut was some monumental life-changing amount that would make their lives so much better. We just heard how it is going to give hope to the middle class, yes, hope for the middle class. Two million people are going to a food bank in Canada every month. When questioned, the government says “the middle class tax cut”, as if this tax cut is going to allow these two million Canadians to leave the lineup at the food bank and be able to afford groceries at home.

When we question the government, we end up hearing about this tax cut, despite youth unemployment, record deficits and record lineups at the food bank. What do Canadians actually get from this tax cut, apart from a future bill down the road?

I am going to read right from the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report, which says, “The average savings range from $50 for a low-income single senior, to $750 for high-income couples with children.” Now, we have to wonder what it is with this government that it would bring in such a tax cut that would benefit the well off. We have a progressive tax system, but it is like my colleague from Mirabel says, it looks like they rolled it out without any thought of what was going to happen. A low-income single senior is going to get $50. A wealthy person, like those in the House, are going to save more, up to $750.

Continuing on with the report, a single senior in the lowest income bracket will save 13¢ a day under this Liberal tax cut. Again, any tax cut is better than a tax increase, but my point is, repeatedly, when we stand in the House to talk about the problems that we are facing in Canada right now, such as food inflation, etc., the Liberals push this out as the saving grace. They say that everything will be okay because we have a tax cut of 13¢ a day. It is about $50 a year in savings. Food inflation, based on 3.5% for last year, cost the average person $150.

This vaunted tax cut does not even cover 50% of the cost just for food inflation. However, somehow, when we bring up two million people at food banks, the government says, “Oh, don't worry, we have the middle class tax cut.” They want people to do something with that 13¢. For a couple with a child in the first income bracket, 68¢ a day is what they will save with this tax cut, or $250 a year on average, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. For a family of three, food inflation cost them an extra $420 last year, but they are going to get $250.

Now again, I will state, like Milt Friedman, I am for tax cuts, but this cannot be the be all and end all of addressing the issues we are having in Canada right now. Canadians want a better answer for the 2 million people lining up at foods bank than to hear that Conservatives voted against a tax cut. Canadians deserve better.

I will note that, if someone is single with no child in the upper tax bracket, they would be saving 50% more than those in a lower-income couple who are both working and have a child. A couple with no children, and both are in the second income tax bracket, will get $710. A couple in the top tax bracket will get back $750.

I know we have a progressive tax system, and therefore, if someone is earning more, they are going to save a bit more, but I would argue that, instead of this poorly thought out election pledge, or propaganda pledge, if we are listening to the Liberals in the House, the Liberals could have used the money to increase the Canada workers benefit, which would help out very low-income workers, and perhaps top up the GIS. Yes, people are not paying taxes if they are on GIS, but it would certainly help out a lot more than paying wealthy Canadians an extra $750.

Taxes across the board are too high in this country, but if the Liberals are going to do a little boutique cut like this, they should maybe focus on those who are a lot more in need than those earning the top incomes.

Now, I will move on to the GST rebate. Again, it is a tax, so I am very happy to see the tax being reduced. Any tax cut is better than no tax cut, but I think the one that the Conservatives proposed in the last election was far superior. It allowed up to $1.3 million, but also allowed it for people who would be buying their second home. It did not restrict it to only first-time homebuyers.

The member across the way talked about his son buying a house four years ago. It would have been nice if he could have taken advantage of it. I do not see why we discriminate against someone who has owned a house before. Someone selling their house to buy a newbuild house opens up inventory of the previous house. It is silly that we put these rules forward.

One of the issues I do have with the program the Liberals introduced is that they announced it on March 20, and we have heard that there were people running out and buying a house immediately. It came into effect on March 27 with the ways and means motion, but it meant that the second it was dropped in the House as a ways and means motion, if someone had signed to buy a house the day before, even if it was going to be built for six months or a year, they were cut out of the system.

We brought this up in the House, and I mentioned we had worked with the government in a non-partisan fashion to get this done. The member for Mirabel brought through some changes in finance committee to address this for those who had purchased when the announcement was made, and the Liberals in the House stood to fight against that. Canadians, through no fault of their own, took it on good will that the government was bringing this in.

It is silly. I realize we have to cut off with the ways and means motions to stop people from gaming the system, but if someone had bought a house and signed the documents, but the house was not going to be built until a year from then, and that is when the GST would be paid, it would make sense that they would not have to pay the GST immediately because of the cut-off date.

Conservatives reached out to the government to see if it would find some way to address that. Many people in Edmonton West were blessed that we built a lot of new homes. In Edgemont, in the southwest part, new homes are going up like gangbusters. The government should address this, but it chose not to.

The last issue is the carbon tax. Do members remember all the Liberals standing in this place saying that the world would burn if we did not have a carbon tax, and that we are basically Satan if we disagreed with their carbon tax dogma? The member for Winnipeg South, who was here earlier, said that carbon pricing does not contribute to inflation. The Liberals stood and repeatedly said that the carbon tax does not lead to inflation, but now they pretend that they are the heroes for killing the carbon tax.

Stats Canada, by the way, states that the carbon tax did cause inflation. The Liberals' own budget 2025 stated five times that the carbon tax caused inflation. Public Accounts notes it, and even the Bank of Canada notes it. I am glad it is gone. I just wish the Liberals had not pushed this hypocrisy saying that the carbon tax did not cause inflation.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague's speech today was a bit meandering at times. I heard him talk about the fact that, in one breath, there are too few measures, quoting 38¢, while in the next piece he talked about the fact that there are hundreds of dollars of savings that would go to either individual Canadians or families. I think he needs to pick a lane on whether he supports these types of measures or whether it is too little.

However, I want to get to the point that he made about this idea that future generations would be paying for this. I was born in 1991. There was a Conservative government at that time in this place. The Conservative Party was actually spending 35¢ of every dollar that was federally invested on debt. Right now, that is below 10¢.

Will this member recognize, notwithstanding he might like to see more calibrated spending and less federal spending, that we are nowhere near where the Conservative Party had our finances back in 1990?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the incorrect history lesson he provided. Everyone knows that the debt inherited by the Mulroney government was left by a Trudeau. Where have we heard that before? Oh, we have heard it here, repeatedly. The PC party actually ran an operational surplus, but they were are saddled with massive debt from the previous government.

Getting back to his comment about picking a lane, I very specifically stated that this program of Liberal tax cuts benefits those who need it least, not the most. It focuses giving more to the wealthiest and gives very little to those who are mostly in need. The government had a chance to change that. It chose propaganda instead of actual results for Canadians.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Edmonton West for his speech. I very much enjoy working with him.

Bill C-4 demonstrates the fact that the Prime Minister was willing to promise anything during the election campaign, without having done the math, without knowing how to go about it. This bill was introduced without any attention to detail. My colleague gave a very good example of that.

In March, the newly appointed Prime Minister promised a GST rebate for first-time buyers purchasing a new home. However, after the election campaign, he introduced the notice of ways and means as well as the bill, and we realized that all those who had believed the Prime Minister in March and decided to buy a new home would not get the GST rebate. Once elected, the Prime Minister decided to abandon those people and refund the GST only for homes purchased in May or later.

The Prime Minister made a promise in March. He was elected, and in May he announced that he was abandoning these people. Beyond the content of the bill, I would like to know what this type of behaviour tells us about the Prime Minister's character, but above all what it tells us about the value of his word.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Mirabel brought up an excellent point about the Prime Minister's temperament and true plans. At the finance committee, the member for Mirabel led a change to this law and the GST credit to allow some flexibility for those who took the Prime Minister at his word when he made the announcement. That passed through the finance committee.

The Liberal government, led by the member for Winnipeg North, used procedural tricks to kill that amendment in the House. The finance committee worked to serve Canadians, while the Liberal government used procedural tricks in the House to kill the work that was brought forward by the member for Mirabel.

It is disgraceful. We had a chance to help Canadians. The government chose announcements and propaganda instead of actually serving Canadians.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

Madam Speaker, right now we are at a point when we are spending more money in interest to repay our debt of over $50 billion a year than we are in health care transfers within our country. In my opinion, being the health critic, it is putting our health care system at risk.

I wonder what my colleague would have to say about that.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, that was a great question.

The public accounts, volume 1, show that the government has a mandated law to increase health care transfers. It was about 4.5%, while the increase in interest payments was 11%. That just shows how broken the government is, as it prioritizes payments to Bay Street corporations over payments to our provinces for health care needs.

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin today by thanking my colleague from Edmonton West for splitting his time with me to share some words about Bill C-4.

The last question of my fellow Manitoban from Riding Mountain about the interest payments on our debt now being higher than health care transfers to provinces was an alarming note to leave it on. With a health care system that is in crisis across Canada, that is an absolutely disastrous record for the Liberals to be leaving this country with.

Six months ago, the Liberals stood in the House, and during the election campaign, and asked Canadians to trust them one more time. They promised lower spending. They said, spend less to invest more. They promised lower costs and a smaller, slimmer federal government. They said that they had heard Canadians loud and clear and that they understood the pain their policies had caused for nine and a half years in this country. They assured us all that things would be different, but every single one of those promises has turned into failure, and this bill is no different.

The House has now passed a budget with a record $78-billion deficit. That is more than twice the kind of deficit that was at one time considered excessive in this country. This is not a minor miscalculation; it is a massive burden added by the government to the future of this country.

According to the independent budget officer, the chance the deficit stays below that is less than 10%. That is no surprise given that it took the Liberals more than halfway into this fiscal year to come up with the amount of money they had already spent and what they planned to spend for the few remaining months left in this fiscal year, by the time they introduced their budget. Make no mistake: The words used to describe the government's spending, including “shocking”, “stupefying” and “unsustainable”, did not come from partisan critics. They came from the very independent fiscal office that the Liberals themselves put in place and staffed.

Meanwhile, the government is adding $80 billion in new spending, which works out to over $5,000 for every household in Canada that someday will have to get paid off. That is money being taken out of the pockets of families, seniors and workers through higher taxes, inflation and interest rates. Why does this matter for the people in southwestern Manitoba? It matters because many working families and individuals are already making due on modest incomes while the cost of living climbs.

Let us consider this. In Brandon, the average monthly cost of living for a single renter, including housing, food, transportation and basic necessities, is estimated to be approximately $1,800 a month. That is roughly $22,000 a year. Meanwhile, the typical household income in Brandon is lower than the national average. Local data suggests the average individual income does not match national paycheques in my region. For some residents, especially renters, younger workers or those early in their careers, that means a very tight budget from month to month. A small tax cut or a few dollars here and there will not move the needle for these households when rent, groceries, fuel and utilities continue to rise due to Liberal inflationary spending.

Looking at the structure of employment in Brandon and Westman more broadly, around 45% of jobs in Brandon are in health care and social services, retail trade or manufacturing sectors. These sectors often run on modest wages, where many workers feel the pinch of inflation and rising costs most severely. Manitobans are hard-working people. Families raising children, seniors on fixed incomes who worked hard all their lives and young adults trying to start their lives deserve more than vague promises and symbolic gestures.

While the Liberal government continues to rack up debt and deficits, cost of living pressures mount. There are higher taxes, higher inflation and a rising burden on ordinary Canadians. At the same time, we see record food bank growth, including in my constituency at the Samaritan House Ministries food bank in downtown Brandon. This is a rising burden on ordinary Canadians that is resulting in families skipping meals and seniors being forced to choose between heating their homes or putting fuel in their cars.

That is not governmental success; it is a systemic failure on a grand scale that is forcing more and more Canadians to be reliant on government handouts just to get by. The Liberal answer is more government programs, more spending and more planning, increasing the money supply, raising debt and calling it investment. This does not change the reality that every dollar collected from Canadians is being poured into interest payments and debt service rather than helping Canadian families make ends meet.

I find it ironic that after a decade of lecturing Canadians, the Liberals have finally admitted what Conservatives have said from the very beginning. The carbon tax was a costly, punishing failure, and the mental gymnastics that these Liberals now go through, after 10 years of flogging how the carbon tax was going to save the planet and then proudly putting forward a bill that cancelled it, are nothing short of hypocritical. For years they mocked and demonized anyone who questioned their tax-and-spend climate scheme, and they told families in southwestern Manitoba that paying more to heat their homes, drive their trucks and buy their groceries was somehow good for them in the long run. Now 10 years later, in the middle of an affordability crisis that they helped create, the Liberals are desperately trying to walk back the very policy that they flogged and pushed for countless years.

Canadians are supposed to applaud the Liberals for putting out the fire they started, but they would not find much of a warm reception for that in my constituency. Let us be clear: The Liberals did not scrap this tax because it was the right thing to do. They scrapped it because Conservatives made it impossible for them to keep defending the indefensible. For years, our party warned that the carbon tax would raise the cost of everything without reducing emissions, and for years, the Liberals insisted that they were right, we were wrong and everyone else was wrong as well. However, now they are plagiarizing Conservative common sense and pretending it was their idea all along. If they had listened a decade ago, families in communities like Verdin, Boissevain, Souris and Killarney would not be drowning in skyrocketing costs today.

Now we see the Liberals rolling out a temporary GST new-housing rebate for first-time homebuyers, a policy that Conservatives campaigned on in the spring election. It took pressure from our party to finally get the Liberals to act, and even now they are presenting it as if it was their own idea. The reality is that homes are being built incredibly slowly due to bureaucratic red tape and gong-show housing policy legislation on the Liberal side.

Home ownership, with or without this GST rebate, has never been further out of reach for Canadians. Young families and first-time buyers are struggling to enter the market, while construction stagnates, costs rise and regulatory red tape continues to slow the growth of new homes. Conservatives have long been fighting for real solutions, like lowering taxes, cutting red tape and supporting builders, so that Canadians can finally achieve the dream of owning and not just renting a home.

Conservatives support letting Canadians keep more of their own money, but when the government gives small tax cuts here, while taking away thousands on the other side, that is not relief; it is just a bait and switch. As such, while we are pleased that there are small tax cuts, this bill certainly does not go far enough. We would have liked to see in this bill a full carbon tax repeal on everything, to support affordability and increase Canadian competitiveness abroad; the GST removed from more homes as well as home construction; a bigger income tax cut that would actually help those in the working class; and responsible government savings by cutting wasteful bureaucracy, foreign aid and corporate handouts to protect the financial health of this country for future generations.

That is the government Canadians deserve. That is the legislation they deserve. That is why Conservatives are standing here. We will continue to stand up for that in this Parliament every day going forward until we deliver a Conservative government that will bring that home for Canadians.

I look forward to my colleagues' questions on this bill.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Madam Speaker, that member represents a rural riding in the prairie provinces, in Manitoba. It is remarkable to me to consistently see prairie MPs from the Conservative Party stand up and refuse to support biofuel policy that matters for canola producers at a moment when it is really important to help drive demand signals.

Maybe the member of Parliament can explain why he is against those types of policies, which are actually good for farmers in his own constituency. Even better, maybe he can explain to his own constituents why he ran on a platform in April that had absolutely nothing for farmers. In the Conservative Party platform, there was nothing there. I have had the opportunity to review it. Maybe that member can explain to his own constituents, his own farmers, why there was nothing. Is it because they take farmers for granted in this country?

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member is sadly very lost about the conversation going on today. At no point did I talk about fuel standards.

Here is something I would like to ask the member: When he travelled on the taxpayer dime to China, what exactly did he achieve in terms of results for ongoing Chinese tariffs on Canadian canola, which is grown and produced in my constituency?

We are calling on the government to get over itself and get a deal with China so our producers can continue to sell at prices at which they can make a profit. They know the Conservative Party continues to stand up for Canadian canola producers. Why will that member not do his job and get a deal for Canadian canola farmers?

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Liberals have gotten into the habit of using the words “tax cuts for the middle class” for things that are not tax cuts for the middle class.

In 2015, Justin Trudeau promised to lower the tax rate for the second income tax bracket. Those who benefited the most were the people earning more than $200,000 a year, because it is the wealthy taxpayers who go through all the tax brackets and hit the jackpot.

Of course, the bill we are debating today reduces the tax rate on the first bracket, which is more aimed at the middle class, but it targets very little. For example, there is nothing in it to help seniors receiving pension benefits, who are on fixed incomes and who are no longer able to work.

I want to know whether my colleague agrees with the member for Edmonton West, as he said earlier in his speech, and whether he thinks that the government could have helped the middle class by using other tax tools while ensuring that this tax cut does not necessarily go into the pockets of those who go through all the tax brackets and who already have quite a bit of money in their pockets.

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Madam Speaker, I certainly do agree with the comments from the member for Edmonton West as well as the member for Mirabel. This bill does not strike at the heart of the people who most need tax relief in this country. It screams of Liberal elitism, giving big tax breaks to the corporate elite in this country, who are very good friends with most of the Liberal front bench. However, it does not help low-income seniors, certainly, or low-income workers. I think it results, for low-income seniors, to 13¢ a day or $4.16 a month, something like that. That is hardly a cup of coffee a month. It is not even that in some parts of the country.

This is nothing. There is no real relief here. There were better levers and better avenues and paths this could have been taken down if they wanted to provide real results for working-class Canadians and seniors on fixed incomes. We know we worked very well with our Bloc colleagues to try to bring that about. It is a shame the Liberals blocked all of those initiatives at committee.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook—Brant North, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Brandon—Souris talked of record food bank use in his region. We had the Feed Ontario hunger report out today, which made some of the same observations about record food bank use, including among seniors. It says senior food bank use has doubled over the last five years. The member had, I think, in his speech that it is $50 that a single senior is going to save from this tax cut, which is 13¢ a day, yet there was another report out that states the average family is facing an $800 increase this year in the cost of food.

Are Canadians continuing to pedal backwards under the Liberals?

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Madam Speaker, the answer to the question is absolutely. Liberal math is that they are going to give people $50 back, but then charge them $800 more. Are they really better off? No, they are not.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Madam Speaker, while the member for Brandon—Souris is still in his seat, I have the opportunity to respond to his query back across the line. Our government is focused on recalibrating the relationship with the PRC and having that engagement. There had not been a leaders' meeting in eight years.

However, I do think the Conservative Party needs to pick a lane on the issue. I have Prairies colleagues wearing a blue jersey for the Conservative Party and saying that we ought to engage and ought to be doing more, but there are members such as the member for Wellington—Halton Hills North, the member for Simcoe North and other members from the Ontario area saying it is a bad idea for the government to be engaging. I do think the Conservatives are going to have to pick a lane about what they feel the government ought to be doing.

We feel as though we need to be having the engagement, because it matters for farmers across this country and for seafood harvesters. I am confident, because I am very close to it, that the work is going to continue and that we will see results. The opposition ought to pick a lane instead of speaking out of both sides of its mouth on this.

I would again highlight to the Conservative Party that there was absolutely nothing in the Conservative platform for farmers. That is remarkable in a bad way for farmers in this country. The Conservatives love to beat their chest about being there for Canadian agriculture, but there is nothing in their platform.

I hope the rural members who represent large agricultural constituencies are going to remind the leader of the official opposition, who now represents Battle River—Crowfoot, to actually do something to support Canadian farmers so we do not get into the same situation again, because it is not good policy for the Conservative Party to be taking farmers in this country for granted. It is a constituency I do not think the Conservatives are actually servicing very well.

Maybe we can have some more conversation on that at some point. I want to make sure we finish that.

I am rising today to speak to Bill C-4. I think it is interesting to talk about how there is absolutely nothing for our farmers in the Conservatives' platform. The Conservatives do not like talking about that, and I can see that some of the opposition members are getting a bit angry with me, but that is okay.

The reason why we are here today is to discuss and debate Bill C-4. The bill is relatively simple, but it is very important to address the issue of affordability and the cost of living in Canada. I would like to take the time today to talk about this bill, as well as about other government initiatives to help Canadians in general.

First, the bill seeks to lower taxes for 22 million Canadians across the country. I am talking about lowering the tax rate for Canadians in the first tax bracket from 15% to 14%. This measure will save families up to $840 a year and individuals up to $420 a year in taxes.

As the Conservative members mentioned, these savings will depend on a person's income because our tax system is progressive. Some people may benefit more than others, but this tax cut will affect 22 million Canadians, which is very important in these circumstances. This tax cut is directly related to the government's decision to do away with consumer carbon pricing.

I served as an MP in the previous Parliament. I represent a rural riding, and I have always spoken out very strongly about the need to change our national policies.

I am glad that the first act of this Prime Minister and this new government was to eliminate consumer carbon pricing. It was the Prime Minister's first decision on taking office, and I support that measure. I think it is the right approach. Furthermore, the tax cut for Canadians complements this measure because, in a way, it is equivalent to the carbon pricing cheques and rebates that were in place during the previous Parliament.

I am a relatively young member of Parliament. Right now, young people are having a tough time finding housing. That is exactly why our government put forward various initiatives to build more homes. We also want to target young Canadians by making easier for them to own their own home. That is why our government introduced a measure to remove the GST for first-time new homebuyers. This is an important measure. My riding is home to a lot of young people my age with families. This measure is extremely important to families in Kings—Hants considering that the average home costs $1 million. This is going to make a big difference in my riding.

Beyond this bill, I believe it is equally important to have a conversation about other affordability-related initiatives in Canada. Something occurred to me while I was listening to the speeches by my Conservative Party colleagues. I am not sure how to say it in French.

One would think that the Conservatives think that Canada is within a snow globe, that Canada is isolated, and that in terms of all the decisions that happen in Canada, there is no global influence on price impact or what we are feeling as Canadians, essentially, that the global economy does not exist and that we are in a snow globe. I think it is an unfortunate approach.

I understand that 10 years in opposition is frustrating. The Conservatives are going to raise things, they are going to push and they want the government to do better. That is fine. That is opposition, but most Canadians understand, for example, that we do not produce coffee in the country, so when we get a coffee, it comes from other countries. Therefore when the price point goes up, maybe that has to do with where the coffee beans originate. I have heard Conservative members list items we do not produce in this country and then suggest that it is the Prime Minister's fault or the government's fault.

Yes, scrutiny of a government is exactly what we do as parliamentarians, but it is a bit of a fallacy, is it not, when the Conservatives suggest it is government policy that is leading to higher costs. I do think we need to be thoughtful around that.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Speaker, there are certainly some policies, as I hear the members opposite saying. We can talk about those, but they go outside the range of what is reasonable on an everyday basis.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Speaker, I look forward to my colleagues' being able to answer.

There is no real rationality. Some members are better than others, but there is no recognition that maybe a war in eastern Europe, a war in the Middle East and some global conflicts can have an impact on supply chains.

There is no recognition that actually there are U.S. tariffs being imposed by the President, not in terms of section 232 tariffs on Canadian industry that the government is working to engage and remove, but in terms of how tariffs on products that actually transit through the United States on their way to Canada may be higher as a result of U.S. tariffs that have been put in place on products that are inbound to the United States.

We never hear that level of nuance from the opposition benches.

There are the impacts of climate change, forest fires and disruption. There are a number of reasons for price increases and challenges. The government is focused on what we can control, in order to be able to support Canadians. The Prime Minister has been very clear on that. I do think, in that context, that it is important to talk about other affordability measures the government has introduced.

Automatic tax filing is one measure that has not received sufficient attention in the House. It is something the government introduced in the budget as part of the budget implementation act. The measure would allow 5.5 million Canadians to benefit from automatic tax filing that would make them eligible for the programs the government either previously introduced or is moving forward in introducing, of which they would be benefactors. That is important.

The member for Edmonton West, who stood up a few speakers ago, never really mentioned that. He talked about equity around programs and taxes. The automatic tax filing program is a prime example of where the government is being very targeted in trying to support the most vulnerable people in our country, and it is a good public policy measure that I think all members of the House should want to support. It would ensure that Canadians make sure they are being compliant with CRA, that they are getting benefits and that we are able to track that accordingly.

I do want to talk about Canada summer jobs. The government is also introducing 30,000 additional Canada summer jobs per year; that means there will be up to 100,000 jobs across the country. In Kings—Hants, this is a big deal for small organizations, not-for-profit organizations and small businesses that benefit from the Canada summer jobs program, and as a source for getting young people into opportunities that could be their first job. It could be building a job that allows them to be able to move on to what might come next in their career.

These are important measures we are introducing for youth, and they are on top of the youth employment strategy, the YESS program, which is focused on creating internships and opportunities for youth in strategic sectors across this country. Our government is focused on being able to move those forward.

They are also on top of the continuation of affordability programs that have been put in place. One of the legacies of the last prime minister's tenure, when we look back in 30 or 40 years, will be the introduction of social programs the Liberal government has committed to protecting that directly benefit Canadians while at the same time recalibrate federal spending to ensure that we can be sustainable over time.

With respect to the Canada child benefit, because the member for Edmonton West talked about targeted programs, under the Harper government, millionaires were getting child benefit cheques of the same amount as was a single mother in my riding with next to no means to her name. That is the legacy of the last Conservative government in this country.

The Liberal government revolutionized the Canada child benefit to make sure it is now targeted to the people who need it the most. In Kings—Hants, it represents almost $16 million of direct support for families. I have talked to single mothers who said they would not be able to put their young children in sports, for example, or be able to participate in the community or buy groceries without the Canada child benefit program. It is an important measure.

The Conservatives voted against it consistently throughout the last number of Parliaments. They do not admit that, even under the Harper government, it was a response to a program that created no nuance in terms of supporting the people who most needed help.

The national school food program is such an important program. I want to take a moment to talk about what it can mean for Canadian agriculture in this country. We are making permanent the national school food program, a program that is about making sure young kids can have a great start and no kid will have to go to school hungry. The Conservatives voted against it.

I was deeply disappointed that the member for Central Newfoundland called the program to feed hundreds of thousands of children through the national school food program, in connection and in co-operation with provinces and territories in this country, “garbage”. He has yet to apologize. It is a program that is benefiting children in his riding, but he chose to call it garbage. He has not explained why, and the Conservative Party has not even suggested why it supports the member's saying it. It is terrible.

The program is a policy, and members can disagree about the government's track broadly, but to call “garbage” a program that should be universally supported among all members of Parliament, of the House, is disappointing.

I want to make the point that we have to use the program as a way to support local farmers. I think about my own riding of Kings—Hants, and there are kind of two tiers. There are operators of larger farms in my own riding in Nova Scotia who are able to sell into a federal food system, so to speak, whether that is Sobeys, Real Canadian Superstore or larger industrial markets. Maybe some of the farmers are exporting around the world.

Then there are small farmers trying to get into the industry, who might not come from a farm family but are interested in contributing to our food systems, and they do not have the economies of scale to be able to sell into a federal system. By letting each province control how it procures good healthy food to go into the bellies of our children in this country, we can use the national school food program as a tool to support more farmers in this country, to build up small and medium-sized farmers to make sure they have a future.

It is important because we are going to need more farmers. The RBC report by John Stackhouse mentioned we need about 10,000 farmers over the next decade. I think, undoubtedly, there is going to be some consolidation in the sector, but that is a program that allows a scalability for farmers across this country. There are some federal parameters around that. I think we can do more on the affordability side. Feeding kids is health care. It is affordability. It is a good educational program and it can be a rural development tool.

Speaking of rural development, I have to highlight this again. At a time when our farmers could use support from the Conservatives, particularly in western Canada, around canola, they continue to not want to support any policy that actually demonstrably reduces emissions in this country and supports rural communities. I would challenge the Conservatives to point to a single measure they have in their tool kit that they are willing to come out and support that actually reduces emissions and also supports rural communities.

The biofuel policy is the best example of that. It actually invests in Canadian farmers primarily in western Canada and the Conservatives choose not to support it. There is very little policy about what they would actually do. In fact, in April, the Conservatives' platform called for spending more taxpayers' dollars to reduce emissions. Is that not remarkable? Instead of using the small-c ingenuity of the private sector, the Conservatives would like to spend more taxpayers' dollars to accomplish less and turn their backs on the policies that actually support farmers in their own backyard. It is madness. We need to be talking about this a bit more.

I do want to talk about child care as an affordability measure. We have reduced child care fees in this country. We have been talking, as a country and as a civil society, for almost 50 years about the importance of national child care. The Liberal government introduced child care. I had the Secretary of State for children and youth in my riding. We were on the ground this weekend talking about what that means through the lens of the communities in West Hants in my riding. We have talked to proponents who have seen the expansion, the build-out of that program and what it means for families. We never hear that from the opposition benches. Those are policies that the Conservative Party is either very silent on or is outright against.

I do want to take time to talk about debt. We hear about it from the Conservatives and they would suggest that the financial track of the country is not sustainable. I would point out that as much as they like to quote the Parliamentary Budget Officer's comments from two months ago before the budget was released, they never quote the Parliamentary Budget Officer's most recent comments when he said the financial track of this country is “sustainable”. Maybe one of the hon. members on the other side will at least start quoting that metric.

Of course, this government is looking at recalibrating spending. The government has a plan to reduce the size of the Government of Canada over the next number of years. We have a plan to balance the operating budget within three years, while also making room for larger capital spends. This includes for the Canadian Armed Forces by making the investment in the equipment and the infrastructure that it needs. I think about my good friends at 14 Wing Greenwood and the work that its members do. It is in Acadie—Annapolis, but it supports many jobs and livelihoods in Kings—Hants.

We need to go back to basics. We have to compare apples to apples. In 1990, the Conservatives of the day were spending 35¢ for every single dollar of the federal budget on servicing debt in this country. Right now, we are below 10¢ of every dollar being spent. This government is working to be able to reduce that, but we need to put that into context.

The Conservatives stand up and suggest it is going to be the next generation who pays this debt. If that were the case, I would not be standing here because under them, it was 35¢ for every dollar. That is the metric we should be using. We should recognize that this government is taking measures to reduce it from just under 10¢ and bring it down lower, but the Conservatives are ludicrous to stand in this House and suggest that we are on a financial cliff anywhere near where we were when they were in government in 1990.

I wish I had more time. When I was a new MP, 20 minutes was a long time. It is not anymore. Maybe we can start doing 30-minute sessions sometime. I do have 10 minutes in questions, so keep them short and we will go through a bunch of them.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to the member's speech. He invoked the name of former prime minister Stephen Harper on several occasions. What he conveniently forgot to mention, of course, is that in 2015, under the Harper government, we had a balanced budget in this country. That means that every dollar we took in we spent, but we did not spend more than what we took in.

He also referred to support for the budget and that he wants the Conservatives to support this budget moving forward. What the Liberals are doing, in effect, is trying to fool Canadians. The fiscal year started April 1. They have already spent eight months' of the money. Now they are saying if we do not vote for it we are not supporting it. They have already spent that money.

More importantly, he also mentioned the Parliamentary Budget Officer. I have numbers here from the Parliamentary Budget Officer. What he said is that a single senior in the first income bracket would benefit from this budget, from these moves, to the tune of $50 a year. Someone who has contributed all of their lives is going to get 13.6¢ a day.

Can the member opposite tell me if he thinks 13.6¢ a day for a single senior on a very low income is enough money, is enough support from a government?

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

What I can tell the seniors at home across this country and in my own riding, Madam Speaker, is that when this government introduced measures to actually increase old age security to be able to strengthen support for seniors, the Conservative Party voted against them.

We always, as colleagues, want to do what we can to support Canadians, to be able to put programs on the table. That same member would tell this House that the government is spending too much. If we put forth another measure that actually puts more money back in the pockets of seniors, the Conservatives consistently vote against these things. The member voted against even a $50 increase because he suggested it was too much money back to Canadians. Again, the Conservatives need to pick a lane.

I would also like to highlight that it is an average of $50. Depending on one's circumstances, one could receive more. The important point is one could receive up to $840 a year. It will depend on one's circumstances. However, if that member and that party had their way, seniors would not have had an increase in the last 10 years.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very articulate speech in which he criticized the inappropriate comments that some Conservatives allegedly made about the national school food program.

I would like him to know that, when Paccar, a truck manufacturing company in Sainte-Thérèse in my region, recently laid off 300 people, his Liberal colleague from Thérèse-De Blainville told these workers on Mario Dumont's show to seek help from food banks and other organizations if they needed to get back on their feet and, above all, to not to take their job loss personally. She offered no solutions, and the government provided no assistance to these workers. These comments by the member for Thérèse-De Blainville were heard by tens of thousands of people in the region.

I challenge my colleague to tell me whether he thinks it is appropriate to tell 300 workers not to take their layoff personally and to go to food banks to get something to eat. I would also ask him, in passing, if it is not high time the government implemented a permanent reform of the employment insurance system.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. The situation is indeed difficult right now. I imagine that these jobs losses at the trucking company are related to the tariffs and the situation between the United States and Canada. That is precisely why we made changes to the EI system. We wanted to make it available to workers who are feeling the impacts of the U.S. trade war and the U.S. tariffs. That is also why this government is focusing on creating major projects. We want to stimulate the economy to support workers and to work with them despite the current circumstances.

I am certainly available to work with my colleagues from Quebec and across the country to come up with solutions to address local situations in this context.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, this is my first chance to weigh in on Bill C-4 and I have a very important question for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. It is about part 4 of this bill, which has nothing to do with affordability and changes to the Elections Act.

My question for him has two parts. How is it that this is included in the Affordability Act; and why is it that, under part 4 of Bill C-4, if the member would turn his attention to the last section of the bill, clause 49, it states, “deemed to have come into force on May 31, 2000”? These are the sections that relate to personal privacy information held by political parties.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Speaker, I do not have exact purview ultimately on the host leader and the team that put this together, but my understanding from the conversations we had is that the reason the provision is in there is to address something that all Canadian political parties agree upon, which is that we need a unified system around data management and the disclosure therein as parties collect information. The reason we are going back to 2000 is to make sure that there is a period in time where we can all agree that the information that may have been collected since that period is unified and handled from a data storage perspective so that we can be protecting the rights of Canadians in terms of the information that may be collected by political parties.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-4, the making life more affordable for Canadians act, puts forward three practical measures that would provide immediate relief for families: lowering taxes for nearly 22 million Canadians, a savings of up to $50,000 in GST relief for first-time homebuyers and permanently removing the carbon tax as of April 1. These steps would work together to help Canadians with income, housing and energy costs at once.

We know that the affordability challenges Canadians are facing are serious, and also we know that Canadians are looking for co-operation across party lines. However, we saw many support programs voted down by the Conservatives.

Could my hon. colleague explain to us the importance of supporting Bill C-4 so that we can deliver these benefits and beyond to Canadians without delay?

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for her work in this place, and for highlighting the work and the importance of this bill and what it means to everyday Canadians.

Bill C-4 is about a tax cut for 22 million Canadians. It is also about removing the GST on new homes for first-time homebuyers, as the member mentioned. I can imagine that there are many people in her own riding who would benefit from that type of program as we work to build out housing across this country.

On the elimination of the consumer carbon price, as the Prime Minister said, it was a program that became highly divisive, depending on which region one was in. We wanted to make sure that we had a policy we could bring forward that would help support the environment and tackle the ability to reduce emissions, but do so in a way that brings Canadians together.

The member is right, and it is a question all members in this House need to ask themselves. We need to get this bill done before Christmas, and hopefully, with her help and the help of other colleagues, we can make that happen.

[John Williamson, Conservative, Saint John—St. Croix, NB]

Madam Speaker, there are two whoppers I want to address that the member spoke to.

The first was his idea that prices are high because prices are set abroad and we have nothing to do with that. Of course, under this government, our foreign exchange rate, the value of the Canadian dollar, has plummeted, which is why foreign goods have gone up so much. That is why it costs so much to live in this country and why families and businesses feel poor today. The dollar is down because investment is down, because of this government's policy. For 10 years, the Liberals put in place tax-and-spend policies that have led to that outcome; that is on the government.

Second, the member mentioned that the war in Ukraine drove up prices. I live in a border community. Today, if I go to the state of Maine to buy a litre of gasoline, it is 30¢ to 40¢ cheaper in Maine than it is in New Brunswick. That is not because of the war in Ukraine. All that gasoline comes from the refinery in Saint John, it is priced in U.S. dollars on both sides, and so it is because of tax. While getting rid of the consumer carbon tax helped, all the other taxes and regulations from this government are driving up energy, and that is why the government is going to find itself in the same position in a few years. High energy prices—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

I need to give the hon. parliamentary secretary 10 seconds to answer.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Speaker, I presume during the time that member was in government that the difference in the price of gasoline between United States and Canada was equally not similar. I think maybe he ought to ask himself that question on that side.

I recognize that this government is focused on what we can control in this country. However, the member opposite should get up more often, because too many of the colleagues around him would suggest that inflation and some of the affordability challenges are tied only to domestic policy and not to other international events. We are focused on what we can control in this country, and we are going to take care of that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for York—Durham, Border Security.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am very thankful for the opportunity to rise today in the House to speak to Bill C-4, a bill respecting certain affordability measures for Canadians and another measure. I will not be speaking to the other measure, but I will be speaking to the first three.

I am splitting my time today with the member for Richmond Centre—Marpole.

Let me begin with a simple truth. Some elements of this bill are based on long-standing Conservative principles, but every single one of them has been diluted, weakened or watered down by a government that has spent nearly a decade creating the very affordability crisis it now claims it wants to fix. That is why I find it fitting that, perhaps unintentionally, the bill is titled “C-4”, because the Liberals have certainly blown up affordability in this country.

Bill C-4 contains four major components: an income tax cut, a GST rebate for certain homebuyers, a partial repeal of carbon tax measures and a legislative response to a recent British Columbia court decision regarding federal political privacy rules. Again, my remarks today will be restricted to the first three.

The first part of the bill would lower the lowest income tax bracket by 0.5% in 2025 and another 0.5% in 2026, reducing it to 14%. However, Conservatives campaigned on lowering this bracket to 12.75%, which is a real cut that would have offered meaningful relief to working Canadians who are struggling to get by. Under our plan, a typical worker earning $57,000 would have saved $900 annually and a couple would have saved $1,800. The Liberal plan, in contrast, would eventually save the average Canadian just $420. This is not even enough to buy a cup of coffee a day. It would be $840 for a couple. That does not come close to matching the rising cost of groceries, rent or mortgage payments.

While Conservatives support tax relief, we also believe in fiscal responsibility. This measure would cost $27 billion over five years. Canadians deserve to know that any tax reduction will be matched by responsible spending decisions rather than higher deficits passed on to future generations. I must say the problem is that the spending goes nowhere. It does not add meaningfully to anything in the country.

The second part of Bill C-4 would offer a GST rebate on new homes, but only for first-time buyers and only until 2031, with construction deadlines extending to 2036. Once again, the Liberal government adopted an idea rooted in Conservative policy and then stripped out the very elements that would have made it effective. Conservatives proposed removing the GST from all new homes under $1.3 million, because we recognize that housing affordability is fundamentally a supply problem. More homes need to be built, and the government should encourage construction across the entire market, not just for a narrow, politically sensitive subset.

The Liberal version is so restrictive that housing experts are already warning it would have little impact on construction or affordability. The Building Industry and Land Development Association in Toronto, one of the largest homebuilding voices in Canada, has said plainly that very few new buyers are first-time buyers, meaning the policy would barely move the needle. Even finance department officials admitted the measure could push prices up, not down, which is completely counterproductive if demand rises without matching increases in supply.

The rebate is also unfair. Canadians who are widowed or divorced and need to purchase a new home would be excluded, and so would anyone who signed a purchase agreement even one day off the arbitrary May 27, 2025, cut-off.

The third major element of Bill C-4 deals with the consumer carbon tax, which Liberals now admit, after years of denial and vehemently obstructing any discussion about it, has become unaffordable for Canadian families. Even as they attempt to backtrack on the consumer tax, the industrial carbon tax, which drives up prices for farmers, processors, manufacturers and ultimately consumers, remains firmly in place. That means the carbon tax will continue to increase the price of groceries and put punitive costs on farmers, who will have to pay extra to heat their barns, dry their grain, purchase and use fertilizer and buy and operate farm equipment.

As a bit of an aside, the carbon tax is also on steel, concrete, aluminum and glass, everything required to build homes, build businesses and build factories. It is increasing the cost of everything for everyone. This is not how we stimulate an economy. Farmers, truckers, small businesses and working Canadians understand that. However, the Liberal government seems unable to grasp the obvious: A tax on everything increases the cost of everything. Conservatives will continue to advocate for a full repeal of all carbon taxes, including the industrial carbon tax, so that families and small businesses can finally get the relief they deserve.

All these measures also come with significant fiscal implications. The first part would cost $27 billion, and the second part, nearly $4 billion. As carbon taxes are potentially reversed, GST and corporate revenues will inevitably decline. Without reductions in wasteful spending, these policies risk further expanding deficits.

I must say that spending is out of control. Conservatives will put forward amendments to ensure that tax relief is paired with reasonable, responsible savings, by cutting wasteful bureaucracy, reducing excessive foreign aid and eliminating corporate handouts that benefit the well-connected, rather than working Canadians.

In conclusion, Bill C-4 simply does not go far enough to address the cost of living crisis facing Canadians. The income tax cut is too small. The GST rebate is too limited, too temporary and too specialized. The carbon tax changes leave the industrial carbon tax completely untouched. As much as my colleagues across the aisle might want to claim that this does not impact affordability, it impacts all affordability at every level of the economy. These measures borrow from Conservative ideas, but they lack the ambition and substance required to give Canadians real relief. Canadians deserve a plan that delivers a stronger tax cut for working people, broader GST relief, a full repeal of all carbon taxes, including the industrial carbon tax, and responsible spending that finally stops driving up inflationary deficits.

Canadians cannot afford half measures. They need a government that will build homes, lower taxes, scrap the carbon tax and restore hope. Conservatives will continue working to deliver that future.

It must be noted that when Conservatives previously put forward common-sense amendments at the finance committee to expand tax relief to more Canadians, Liberals filibustered and blocked those proposals. That is their record, not ours.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I am sure the member is aware that his premier, the Premier of Alberta, asked to sign an agreement in acknowledgement of the valuable role of the industrial carbon tax.

I have a two-part question for the member: Does he support the Premier of Alberta's signing of a document that ultimately inflates or causes a greater increase in the carbon tax for the province of Alberta, which he also represents?

The other thing, just to be very clear, is that a lot of Conservatives like to talk tough against this legislation. They like to filibuster the legislation. Can he give us an indication about how he will actually vote on the legislation?

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is two parts, two questions and too much time.

With voting, it is up to the government to convince us how to vote and to bring in the amendments required to make this something that will actually help Canadians. It is up to the government House leader to earn the support across the aisle.

As to the first part of the member's question relating to the Premier of Alberta, the grand ransom was a deal where the premier did not have a choice because the government across the way boxed everybody in. It is a fallacy to think that the compromises that had to be made are going to result in anything productive or an improved economy.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, earlier, I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister if he thought the 13.6¢ per day that a single senior in this country is going to get as relief through this particular budget bill they are putting through is enough for a single senior who is struggling to pay for their groceries. When they go to the grocery store, they are making a decision as to whether they should buy less or they should eat less quality and less quantity, so that they can afford to live.

Does the member think roughly 13.5¢ a day is enough money to give support to a senior who has contributed to this country all of their life?

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, the short answer is that the question answers itself. It is absolutely ridiculous that this is the circumstance seniors find themselves in after more than 10 years of the Liberal government. Thirteen and a half cents is a pittance and an insult to the people who have worked so hard and contributed their whole lives to the building of this country. It is absolutely not acceptable, not at all.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the bill does three things. First, it reduces income tax. Twenty-two million Canadians are going to get a tax break. Second, it gets rid of the GST for first-time homebuyers. Again, it is a great tax break. Third, it deals with the consumer carbon tax in terms of getting rid of it in law. These are three things I would have thought the Conservatives would vote in favour of.

Can the member not agree it is unfortunate he has not been told how he is going to be voting by the Conservative leadership? I would have figured they would have been told by now that this is good legislation and that they will be voting in favour of it.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, again, the member opposite knows full well it is fully up to the government and the House leader to convince this side of the aisle that the government has good legislation, or it could accept our amendments and incorporate them into the legislation. It is absolutely a no-brain circumstance, and that may be part of the problem on the other side of the aisle. Amend the legislation. Make it actually useful. Eliminate all of the carbon tax. Make a meaningful tax cut that meaningfully affects all Canadians, and make sure the GST comes off homebuilding for all Canadians.

[John Williamson, Conservative, Saint John—St. Croix, NB]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member in response to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, who, in responding to my last question, presumed that when Stephen Harper was in office, the tax differential on gasoline between Maine and New Brunswick was the same. It was not. He was wrong to presume. He should check his facts and get the story straight. It was half the amount. Under the current government, the carbon tax regulations and levies have gone up. My other colleague, my colleague from Saint John, knows this well.

Could the member please inform the House what the impact of taxes is on goods? When we tax something, what happens? Does the price go up? Does that explain that big yawning differential in gas prices?

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, taxes on goods make everything go up, and make everything more expensive in life. There is less—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Richmond Centre—Marpole.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Madam Speaker, before I address Bill C-4, I want to speak about the tragic fire in Tai Po, Hong Kong, which is the deadliest in the city in 77 years.

Like many Hong Kong Canadians in Richmond and Vancouver, I immigrated from Hong Kong 37 years ago. I still have family there, including in the affected districts. Many people in our community are grieving and shaken.

Let us acknowledge the brave young firefighter, Ho Wai-ho, who lost his life in the line of duty. As a father of a firefighter in Richmond, this loss is deeply personal. My family understands the risks first responders face every single day. Our prayers are with the families who are mourning, with those waiting for news and with a city that is hurting. May they find strength and comfort.

After 10 years of the Liberal government, Canadians are living through the worst affordability crisis in over a century. In Richmond, Vancouver and across Canada, families face record food prices and rents, and mortgage payments that have doubled for many households. Young people say that they may never own a home. Seniors tell me they cannot keep up with everyday costs. Newcomers are struggling to build a stable life. Canadians deserve better than theatrical policies; they need real help.

The most affordable thing about Bill C-4, the making life more affordable act, is the title. The truth is that this is not an affordability plan; it is political theatre. The government is boasting a small reduction in the lowest income tax rate, but as the saying goes, “Distant water cannot put out nearby fires.” The actual benefit for most families is tiny. It is a penny of relief while the budget behind the bill brings a dollar of new costs: higher payroll taxes, higher debt servicing costs than Canada spends on health transfers, benefits that fall behind inflation, mortgage renewals that have doubled for many households in Vancouver and Richmond, and the largest deficit outside of the pandemic.

Groceries are up, gas is up, insurance is up, child care wait-lists are longer and families are losing their savings and financial security due to the government's fiscal incompetence. Canadians do not need pennies or a creative accounting bill; they need a government that understands the real cost of living, rent that does not take up more than half of their income, renewal rates that do not add thousands of dollars a month to mortgages, child care they can afford and groceries that are not so expensive that families need to cut back.

Parents should not have to skip meals so their children can eat. This is the reality Canadians face after 10 years of irresponsible Liberal spending. Bill C-4 does not change that reality; it offers scraps off the table of the Liberal government and their friends.

Food bank usage in our region is at the highest level ever recorded. Across Canada, food bank visits have more than doubled since 2019, reaching over two million visits a month. Seniors in Richmond tell me that they are rationing their medication because they simply cannot afford both groceries and prescriptions. I speak with young people who have moved back in with their parents, not because they want to, but because rent in Vancouver and Richmond has become completely out of reach. This is not normal; this is a crisis.

If the government has taught Canadians anything at all, it is that just because it glitters does not mean it is made of gold. The GST rebate for first-time homebuyers is a glittering gift with charcoal inside. In Richmond, Vancouver and the vast majority of Canada, almost every new home is above the $450,000 to $550,000 price cap. This measure helps almost no one, not young families, not newcomers and not renters trying to save for a down payment. It is a gift to Brookfield's bottom line, especially with their pending U.S.-manufactured modular housing project.

Real homebuilding is slowed by red tape, slow approvals and the current government's gatekeeping. Bill C-4 would not fix that. It would not build more livable homes. It would not lower mortgage payments. It would not make rent affordable. Canadians would save a penny while making a buck, and I will add that the pennies do not come free.

Inside the affordability bill, the government has hidden that it will weaken privacy protection for federal political parties by exempting them from privacy laws. That has nothing to do with affordability. It is blatant government overreach, a bribe at the expense of Canadians' civic liberties. It is an underhanded fire sale on Canadians' personal and private information. Why hide the changes inside a bill that Canadians think is about the cost of living?

One of the clearest examples of the government's creative accounting and misleading affordability policy is its decision, in the same budget, to eliminate federal student loans for most public career training programs. This is not a small adjustment; it is a war on the working class. These programs train tens of thousands of Canadians every year for jobs we desperately need: health care workers, childhood educators, trades and technical workers, IT and cybersecurity people, hospitality workers, medical administrators and frontline community service staff.

Students rely on federal loans because they cannot pay thousands of dollars upfront. There are also people who are career transitioning, low-income people, immigrants and people supporting families while trying to survive the government's crumbling economy. The government is closing the door on Canadians trying to pursue a livelihood. The decision would remove opportunities for young Canadians and second-career workers at the exact moment our country needs trained talents the most.

The government's claim that Bill C-4 would make life affordable is just theatre, while the budget does the opposite behind the scenes. Education would be harder to access, and training would be more expensive. Bill C-4 promises affordability but would not deliver. It gives pennies while the budget takes dollars. It glitters but hides unrelated privacy changes inside an affordability bill. It would do nothing for struggling Canadians. Families in Richmond, Vancouver and across Canada would only continue paying more each and every month.

Canadians deserve better than charcoal this Christmas; they deserve a real government with real and honest solutions. Canadians deserve a Conservative government.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, right off the top, just to echo the member, my prayers and thoughts are with the 150-plus people who fell victim to the Hong Kong fires. I appreciate the member's making reference to that.

I have a few fascinating questions. I am sure the member is aware that the Conservative Party today is really a far-right political entity, and I understood him to have been a candidate for the NDP back in the day. That is a pretty big leap, from a progressive party to a far-right party. Could he could provide a comment on that, with respect to the bill?

The other thing is that I am told you are still a current city councillor. Is it because you do not have confidence in the leader?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The member has to speak through the Chair. I am not a city councillor anywhere.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, is it because of a lack of confidence in the leadership of the Conservative Party that the member is not giving up his seat at the council level?

Finally, could the member provide his thoughts on whether or not he will be voting in favour of the legislation?

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Madam Speaker, while I listened to my colleague on the other side, I realized only one thing: The Liberals have copied from policies the Conservatives advocate.

In addition, as a city councillor, I have the privilege and advantage of listening to people right on the ground. They are telling me day in day out that they are having a very big problem with affordability, which Bill C-4 would not address.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his great speech on Bill C-4, the unaffordability act, as the government wants to call it.

We know that the Liberals have no good ideas of their own, and that when they take our good ideas, they wreck them. Conservatives put forward a proposal to take the GST off new home builds, and the Liberals came in with something that sounds like that, but it is only for first-time homebuyers. First-time homebuyers are generally not buying newbuilds; they are buying older homes. Newbuilds are what we need in our country.

I am wondering if my hon. colleague has any comments around the fact that the Liberals steal our ideas but then wreck them.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Madam Speaker, when I read this bill, a word comes to my mind, which is “smokescreen”. I see the Liberal government trying to deceive Canadians by telling them that this is going to help them, but, at the same time, they are doing other things that are going to hurt the economy, hurt people and make life more difficult for Canadians. In this case, they might say that the GST rebate is helpful, but again, it is to a very tiny subgroup of Canadians. It is not helping everybody. It is not helping the people who need help the most. The Liberals are using a smokescreen to pretend they are doing something.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, a 26-year-old, a 24-year-old, a 22-year-old and a four-and-a-half-year-old and their better halves make up my family, along with my wife. They all live with me, and by the way, they have very good-paying jobs. They cannot afford a home or to start a family, so they all live under my roof. It is probably my greatest gift, but, at the same time, any loving parent would want their children to move on.

Other than the industrial carbon tax, what falls short in Bill C-4 that would truly give young adults an opportunity, something that Conservatives would put into this bill to give them a chance to start their own families and buy their first homes?

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Madam Speaker, Canadians do not need handouts. They need a government that is competent and that will help us make the economy better and stronger, so that everybody can be self-reliant and independent and feed their families with the incomes they receive.

Canadians need more help, not in terms of handouts but in a government that is competent enough to help the country and the economy move forward.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, the third part of Bill C-4 reflects what could be called the Prime Minister's environmental fiasco. Actually, what we are witnessing with the abandonment of consumer carbon pricing is the beginning of the official end of the fight against climate change. This step back was taken on April 1, before the people had even given him an electoral mandate.

Instead of countering the Conservatives' carbon pricing disinformation, the Prime Minister simply starting chanting from their slogan sheet by eliminating one of the flagship measures for achieving the country's greenhouse gas reduction target. Since then, it has been one step back after another, back to the Stone Age, which happens to be exactly what the Leader of the Opposition wanted. That is what we are seeing. In the end, the oil companies will have gotten everything on their wish list, courtesy of the government.

Added to this, more recently, is the climate capitulation budget. The icing on the cake is a new oil sands pipeline. Getting back to Bill C-4, it is the elimination of the carbon pricing rebate. Let us be clear. This spells the end of any possibility of meeting Canada's greenhouse gas reduction targets. Obviously, the Bloc Québécois strongly opposes this environmentally irresponsible behaviour. This shows that the government has no intention of fighting climate change. It also highlights a major injustice for Quebeckers. I am talking about the elimination of the carbon rebate that came with a cheque for Canadians outside Quebec, but was paid for with Quebeckers' money. They were not entitled to a cheque. That means that money from Quebec was taken out of Quebeckers' pockets and sent as election goodies in the form of cheques worth $814 million in the middle of an election campaign. Once again, that money came out of Quebeckers' pockets.

The government told us that it was going to increase industrial carbon pricing, but this bill does not mention that at all. If we look at what is happening abroad, in the rest of the world, on January 1, the European Union will be imposing a tariff on the import of products and goods from other countries. If there is no price on pollution in those other countries, Europe will put a price on carbon at the border. Right now, given the uncertainty in the United States under Mr. Trump and given that access to the U.S. market is becoming more difficult, it is clear that this would be the worst time to close our doors to the European market. This is especially true given that the consumer carbon price is being removed in Canada and we do not yet know what will happen to industrial carbon pricing.

I want to remind the House that the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development believes that carbon pricing is one of the few effective aspects of the federal greenhouse gas reduction plan. By ending carbon pricing, however, the government is not only giving up the fight against climate change, it is also leaving Quebec in the lurch after it has once again been cheated, literally robbed. The Bloc Québécois has repeatedly demanded that the government acknowledge this situation in its budget and return the $814 million in question to Quebeckers. We are not alone in calling for this; the Quebec National Assembly is calling for it too. Every one of the parties in Quebec City is unanimously calling for the federal government to return that money to us. What has the government and its 44 Liberal members from Quebec done? They have shown us that they are utterly incapable of supporting the Quebec National Assembly's unanimous demand. They are ignoring Quebeckers and condoning the fact that Quebeckers were just robbed of $814 million to send out vote-buying cheques.

When we talk about carbon pricing, it is worth remembering that Quebec has a price on carbon. Quebec established a carbon market; it has taken action. However, by removing carbon pricing in the rest of Canada, the government is obviously putting Quebec at a disadvantage. It is important to remember that nearly 90% of the money collected by the government was returned to citizens outside Quebec. This rebate allowed 80% of the population, or the majority of households, to receive more money than they paid in carbon pricing.

The former environment minister said very clearly that this was a very good measure to combat climate change. However, what was the first thing we saw the new Prime Minister do? He took a big pen and, like Donald Trump, signed an executive order to proudly abolish carbon pricing, which the previous government and the previous environment minister considered to be a good environmental measure. The Liberals even dared to abolish this measure on April 1. What did they do on April 22, which is Earth Day? On Earth Day, they decided to send Canadians cheques totalling $3.7 billion. That was $3.7 billion to buy votes in an election campaign.

Obviously, it is important to remember how carbon pricing works. It is a rebate that has always been paid in advance. It was therefore an advance payment to households. This money was not being reimbursed. In other words, Canadians received a cheque for money they had never actually paid. I repeat that Quebeckers did not receive any, but they did pay for it. We believe that this amounts to funding the environmentally irresponsible behaviour of the Canadian provinces at the expense of Quebeckers. Quebec is being penalized because it has made efforts to fight climate change. The government stole money from the pockets of Quebeckers to reward Canada for not making an effort. That is why the Bloc Québécois is calling on Ottawa to unconditionally transfer the $814 million that was paid by Quebec, because those cheques were written for a carbon pricing system that no longer even existed. They were sent on Earth Day, which is truly a dark day and marked the beginning of the end of the government's fight against climate change.

The Prime Minister justifies his lax approach to combatting climate change—or rather his abandonment of the fight against climate change—by invoking Canada's need for economic development. What is the logic behind saying that we are going to develop the Canadian economy when we need to develop international trade partnerships with other countries, yet EU countries and other countries are going to impose carbon pricing at the border for non-compliant countries that do not put a price, or a high enough price, on carbon? What will the Prime Minister say to these trading partners when he himself abandons important measures? There is uncertainty in the United States, we agree, but we know that we need to strengthen trade ties outside the North American bubble.

I would like to point out that Quebec accounts for one-third of trade between Canada and Europe. We receive nearly 40% of European investment in Canada. We have an advantage and we are the gateway to Europe. Quebec is, in a way, the bridge between America and Europe. Obviously, we hope that Quebec will be able to double its trade with Europe, including, of course, the United Kingdom. Ideally, we would increase it from $42 billion to $84 billion within five years.

However, Europe currently has the carbon border adjustment mechanism. In 2023, the European Union adopted legislation creating this carbon border adjustment mechanism, which is set to come into force on January 1, 2026. What Europe wants to do is prevent carbon leakage and avoid unfair competition from competitors located in places where it is free to pollute. Europe will therefore impose a tax adjustment. Again, Europe will impose a tax adjustment on imports of certain products from countries where carbon pricing is too low or non-existent. This is now the case in Canada. In 2024, the United Kingdom also adopted legislation similar to the European law. The U.K. law will come into effect on January 1, 2027.

This is the direction the world is heading in. We need to keep that in mind when we talk about carbon pricing. Pollution comes at a cost, and a price has to be put on that cost. Other countries are preparing to do so, and Canada will pay a very high price if it ignores the cost of pollution. Canada intends to pass the cost on to taxpayers as a whole, forcing them to pay the cost if the companies that pollute do not.

Essentially, when a product enters Europe, a levy will be charged that is equal to what the carbon price would have been in Europe. In the beginning, this levy will apply to select products, such as aluminum, iron, steel, cement, fertilizer, hydrogen and electricity. Gradually, it will be extended to include all goods. While border carbon adjustments may be a new mechanism, similar mechanisms already exist. They are completely legal and trade-rule compliant. Examples of equivalent measures include the excise tax on tobacco or alcohol, which is charged when these products leave the factory where they are made, or at the border for imported goods. This is a global trend that Canada is bucking.

The World Bank compiles a list of carbon pricing mechanisms around the world. In 2023, it counted 53 countries with carbon pricing. That is five more than in 2022, 12 more than in 2021, and 69 more than 20 years ago. The trajectory is very clear. The world is waking up to the reality of climate change and is putting a price on pollution by choosing carbon pricing. No country in the world has abolished its carbon pricing. Canada would be the first to choose this path. Clearly, it is sinking deeper into climate irresponsibility, primarily to satisfy oil and gas companies.

It should be noted that carbon pricing does not apply in Quebec. Quebec has its own cap-and-trade system for emissions. It is not the only one to have implemented such a system. It works with the Western Climate Initiative, among others, with California. There are exchanges between companies, including between Quebec and California. Together, they have a combined GDP of $4.8 trillion. That is enormous. It is a major market. There has never been carbon pricing at the federal level in the United States. The states are taking action. Washington is also taking action in this regard. Having Mr. Trump as President does not change the situation.

Nothing has changed, since individual states are continuing to move forward. California has even strengthened its market under the cap-and-trade system and committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions even further. This means that the fight against climate change is accelerating in certain countries, whether in the state of California or in the European Union, which, although imperfect, is continuing the fight against climate change. That is the opposite of Canada, which is bucking the global trend. Quebec could once again suffer because Canada has taken on certain responsibilities while Quebec is going to play by a different set of rules. In Quebec, we decided to put a price on pollution because, otherwise, it is passed on to society as a whole. We need to have carbon pricing, just as we have other types of pricing. There is a price for electricity and a price for water consumption. There must be a price for pollution, because it is not free.

The Conservative Party wants to abolish industrial carbon pricing. According to the Conservatives, any pricing would be bad. They never explain how we are going to combat climate change if we abolish the basic principles recognized by some of the world's most renowned economists. There is a consensus that putting a price on carbon is an effective measure, and it is a measure that the world is moving towards.

For its part, Canada has chosen to return to the 20th century. It wants to abolish and reduce carbon pricing. Once again, this will undermine the efforts of Quebeckers, who believe it is important to diversify exports and export destinations and to ramp up trade with Europe. Obviously, Quebec's businesses, our SMEs, will find themselves at a disadvantage if the rest of Canada does not feel the same way.

I would like to remind members that both the European Union and the United Kingdom have implemented exemption schemes and carbon pricing at the border. The Bloc Québécois will oppose this bill to ensure that Canada stops thwarting Quebec's efforts to diversify its markets and combat climate change. We will not allow ourselves to be distracted by the Trump effect. There is a global reality on which countries are taking action, and I mentioned several examples, but unfortunately, it is not a reality that Canada has embraced so far.

It is not just one measure. If there were something to replace that and if it could be shown that there was a willingness to meet the country's greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, comply with the Paris Agreement and reduce pollution, we would believe it. Unfortunately, the very first thing that the new Prime Minister did, through an order in council, was followed by several other steps backward. That is concerning from the standpoint of the fight against climate change. This is not just one major step backward. We were expecting the government to show us a climate competitiveness strategy that would highlight the government's commitment but, in reality, there is no new money to fight climate change. There is no clarity on industrial carbon pricing. How much will it cost? To what extent will it be increased? What kind of additional greenhouse gas emission reductions will it bring? In fact, we see a desire to come to an agreement with Alberta, which is currently refusing to harmonize its industrial pricing system with the Canadian system. Once again, this will likely lead to a decrease in Alberta's commitments.

We cannot give a blank cheque to a government that is eliminating important measures, such as consumer carbon pricing, while giving billions of dollars more in its latest budget to increase or extend funding and subsidies to oil and gas companies, removing the cap on greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector, and striking a deal with Alberta that makes it very clear that they plan to harmonize their standards. Harmonizing with Alberta means lowering the standards. Just look at the carve-out for Alberta on the clean electricity regulations.

For us, abolishing industrial carbon pricing means abandoning the fight against climate change, and that is completely irresponsible—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

We have to move on to questions and comments.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the legislation provides tax relief for all Canadians, including those in the province of Quebec. There are significant tax savings for over 22 million people in total. It also provides the opportunity for first-time homebuyers to benefit by being exempt from the GST. Both of those programs benefit the people of Quebec.

How have the Bloc members made the determination to say no to those particular benefits?

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois has been very clear. We had six non-negotiable demands for the government and it turned them all down. It refused to pay back the $814 million that was stolen from Quebeckers. It refused to increase health transfers. It refused to help young people access home ownership, as we proposed. It turned down a wide range of requests that garnered consensus in Quebec and that cost very little. It also refused to provide assistance to seniors aged 65 to 74. That is like putting arsenic in a cake, and that is not good for Quebec. It is not something we will accept.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the member's speech. While he is new here, his ideas are quite outdated as Canadians fully rejected a carbon tax in the last election. Even people like Bill Gates are saying that we have to focus on things like eliminating hunger and poverty, which are on the rise right here in Canada. This bill purports to do some of those things.

Why is the member bringing these outdated ideas back to this place and not focusing on reducing hunger and poverty in this country?

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, our Conservative colleagues say nothing about the roughly $10 billion in subsidies that the Canadian government gives oil and gas companies every year. They say nothing about the $10 billion it costs Quebec to purchase hydrocarbons, oil and gas each year. That is money that leaves Quebec and goes to Alberta, among other places. That represents a cost.

They say nothing about the cost of insurance, which is rising because of climate change. They say nothing about how droughts, floods and the problems facing farmers are driving up the cost of groceries and food. I would like them to talk about the real issues. I would like them to tell us who will pay if we do not put a price on pollution. Everyone is paying now, and we can see that in climate change and the devastating consequences we are experiencing today, such as the forest fires that have occurred again this year.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. It is always interesting to hear him speak, particularly when he talks about the environment. However, I do not think that these subjects are mutually exclusive. Our Conservative colleague just told us that his constituents want us to get rid of the carbon tax and to instead focus our efforts on economic measures so that people can buy homes and so on.

There is something that I am wondering about. We often hear this kind of rhetoric. I would like to hear my colleague's comments on that. Is taking care of the environment and leaving a healthy, viable planet for our children really at odds with investing today to enable families to put food on the table and a roof over their heads? Are these two challenges mutually exclusive or not?

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we believe that it is actually possible to grow the economy, help people cope with the rising cost of living, including insurance premiums and groceries, while also fighting climate change and developing the jobs of the future. Yes, we are concerned about the cost of living and access to home ownership. That is one of the reasons why we proposed two key measures that we wanted to see in this budget, but the government did not include them.

For example, we proposed a measure for a down payment for first-time home buyers. We proposed that parents be able to use their RRSPs to help their children access the home buyers' plan. It is hard to get the money needed for a down payment.

We also suggested offering interest-free loans, which would cost the government next to nothing, but would allow these new families, these young people, to make the necessary down payment to buy a home. This measure would have complemented what the government has proposed. Access to home ownership is important to us. We think it is important for everyone to have access to it, not just those who can afford a down payment, which is becoming increasingly expensive.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the boldness of the answer I was provided. It is somewhat disappointing that the members of the Bloc believe that the people of Quebec, through their eyes, should be denied a tax break on their income tax and, further to that, that first-time homebuyers should not be provided the opportunity to get an exemption from the GST.

Does the member believe he is consistent with what his constituents would want to see happen with respect to those two measures?

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are simply asking the question. If the government really intended to move forward with the decent measures in its budget, why is it presenting everything as a take-it-or-leave-it package? Why did it not split it up so that we could support the decent initiatives?

What we are being asked to do is swallow a bitter pill in exchange for a few small, interesting measures. Looking at the budget, we are stuck with it as a whole. We had six specific demands for Quebec. The government deliberately chose to ignore them and did not want to work with the other opposition parties. As a result, we cannot support it, unfortunately.

It is undemocratic to say that we must take it or leave it. We are telling the government to work constructively with the opposition and make amendments, for one. Then, perhaps we could accept it, but at this point, the package deal is unacceptable to Quebec.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals, throughout this debate, have spoken a lot about the GST relief for first-time homebuyers, leaving out the fact that relief is available particularly when it comes to first-time homebuyers buying new homes. I know in northwestern Ontario, this is something that almost never happens, in part because there are not many new homes being built but also because what young first-time homebuyers can afford are often homes that are 20 or 30 years old. I wonder if the member shares my assessment of things in his own riding as to how this program or this proposal being brought forward by the Liberal government is not going to be as effective as it would have us believe.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely share my colleague's concerns about how difficult it is for young families, among others, to buy a home and to save up enough money for a down payment. Obviously, we support the GST measure, but we think it needs to be complemented by other measures. The biggest obstacle to home ownership is how hard it is to save up a down payment. With house prices continuing to rise, it is becoming increasingly difficult for young people to save and to buy their first home, partly because of the cost of living.

I hope my colleague will say that he supports the idea that parents should be able to use their RRSPs to help young people get into the housing market, that the government should introduce low-interest or even interest-free loans to help young people get that down payment so they can buy a home, because there is a fundamental problem with access. Eliminating the GST is not enough. The problem of saving for a down payment also needs to be addressed.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives rise to say that all Canadians voted in the last election to get rid of the carbon tax. However, the political reality is that people voted for the current Prime Minister because they were afraid of the Leader of the Opposition. They believed that getting rid of the carbon tax was a temporary compromise, even though they still supported the fight against climate change, but thought that things would be worse under the Conservatives. In voting for the Liberals, they were choosing between the lesser of two evils.

Today, however, we have a Liberal Prime Minister who is even worse than the Conservatives. He going farther than people dreamed the Conservatives would go. That is exactly what we got with the infamous pipeline agreement. The Prime Minister is also discarding other carbon tax policies, including in Alberta. It is the end of the fight against climate.

I would like my colleague to tell me whether he believes that this is truly what people voted for.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, people never even saw the current government's real oil and gas agenda. During the election campaign, the Liberals did not say a word about the fact that they were even more in favour of oil and gas than the Conservatives, who never approved a pipeline project under Stephen Harper.

Yes, people were tricked.

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Kenora—Kiiwetinoong.

Like a few members, I am brand new here. This is my first term as an MP, but I was an MLA back in B.C. for seven years. I was also a chief councillor for six years, and previous to that, I was a councillor for eight years. A lot of the issues we talk about are very similar to what I have done in the last 20 years, but I have not really seen what is happening here happen before in my previous political life.

What I am talking about is the Liberal government basically borrowing, or stealing, ideas from the Conservative platform. Whether it is stealing or borrowing, it is all in the same vein to try to get life more affordable for Canadians, which is the short title of Bill C-4, the making life more affordable for Canadians act. It is not bad for the Liberals to steal Conservative ideas, as long as they take 100% of the idea and not water them down. If they were to water down the ideas, they would not actually be making life more affordable for Canadians. It is political spin, or rhetoric, and it would not achieve what Conservatives wanted to do in the first place, which was to make life affordable across the board for all Canadians, not just those who would get a tax break buying a $100-million jet.

Take the carbon tax, for example. I watched CPAC when the Conservatives were hammering the Liberals to get rid of the carbon tax: Axe the tax. However, the Liberals would not hear of it. They would accuse the Conservatives of burning the planet if people took their family for a drive in a car. Anybody who questioned the carbon tax was a climate change denier. How did it turn around? The Liberals are the ones who are burning the planet by driving their family all around Canada and jumping on jets to go to Brazil for an environment conference of all things.

The Liberals pulled off a sleight-of-hand trick. They pulled off taking the carbon tax off for fuel, for example, which Conservatives wanted, and overnight that created savings for Canadians, but they kept the industrial carbon tax. We just got through talking about that in committee today where a farmer told the Minister of Environment that the industrial carbon tax on farmers is not imaginary. It is real. The farmer sees it when he is purchasing fertilizer or purchasing equipment. The farmer cannot absorb these costs, and so it has to be transferred down the line to average Canadians.

On top of this, the Liberal government basically admitted today that it is going to support the International Maritime Organization for a carbon shipping tax. However, it will not say how that is going to affect Canadians who want to purchase goods and services in Canada. I do not like the carbon tax, but in this case, when the Liberals support an international shipping tax, unlike the carbon tax, that money is going to leave Canada and it is not going to come back. It is going to go to a foreign agency, and who knows what it is going to do with it, at a time when Canadians are trying to decide whether or not they should skip a meal or pay the energy bill. That is an absolute shame.

I heard my colleagues talking about housing affordability and about first-time homebuyers. First-time homebuyers really cannot afford to buy the construction of a brand new home. They are usually buying homes that were built 30 or 40 years ago. This would work if Canada was building houses, but Canada is not building houses. Now, the government is taking unprecedented moves where Liberals are promising to build houses when really it is the private sector that has been building houses in Canada for the last 100, 150 or 200 years. It was not a problem until the Liberals brought in policies to crunch Canadians in affordability in all sectors.

We would not need this if the policies were not in place, and now the Liberals are trying to unwind them. The Liberals' 10 years of policies created these issues, and now they come to the table and say, “We have the solutions to the issues we created.” Why do this to Canadians? Why do this to a country? Why do this to the next generation, who cannot really imagine buying a house in Canada and building a home?

In B.C. alone, in September, food prices increased by 3.9%, with beef jumping 17.8% and coffee and tea increasing by 26%. The Business Council of British Columbia reported that costs have risen 23%. What does the Liberal government say about the costs and the taxes? It says they are imaginary. I can say that the two million people lining up at food banks do not think these costs are imaginary. They do not think the idea that they cannot afford to live, to eat, or to pay their energy bill is imaginary. The costs are real. I do not think the 700,000 kids who are lined up at food banks think this is imaginary.

The only ones who think it is imaginary are the Liberals. They think that if they keep saying the word and the phrase over and over, Canadians will believe this. I did hear this as a statement coming from previous Liberal ministers: that if we say over and and over something that is not true, Canadians will ultimately believe it is true, but we have to keep repeating it.

I can say right now that the costs and the unaffordability crisis Canadians are facing are real. I know people in my riding who know that the costs are real and that the unaffordability crunch is real. When an elder in my riding has a shopping cart with two items in it, expired items at 50% off, it is not the food she wants. It is not nutritious, but it is what she can afford. This is Canada. I could see this maybe happening in a third world country.

What is so shameful about this is that the Liberals have known for years that people are suffering and struggling. Low-income people and seniors are hoping to see some light at the end of the tunnel in terms of affordability, but they are not seeing it. They are hearing more rhetoric.

We have not even talked about the idea of either printing more money or borrowing more money and dumping it into the economy without addressing the goods and services that go into that. I thought that, as a banker, the Prime Minister would know better. Apparently he does not, so laymen like us from small communities are trying to point out that this is not the way to run a country; it is the way to run a country into ruin. It is a shame that this is coming from a first world country like Canada, which used to be a leader in affordability and freedoms. We are going the wrong direction.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, obviously I disagree with the members' assessment. Canada is still the best country in the world to call home. Quite frankly I am a bit disappointed in the members of the Conservative Party, in the words they have been using to try to justify their positioning of what is actually in Bill C-4. It is a very straightforward piece of legislation. One is either for it or against it. The Conservatives like to criticize it, but I think they will likely end up voting in favour of it.

Would the member not recognize that if we want to deal with the issue of affordability, one of the ways we can do that is by voting in favour of Bill C-4? Will the member make a commitment to the House today that he wants the legislation to pass before Christmas?

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I could not care less about what the member is disappointed in. Why does he not come to talk to the people in my riding who cannot afford a loaf of bread? What does he say to that? Why does he not get around the spin and the rhetoric of the budget and Bill C-4, and actually do something of substance to reduce costs like the Liberals promised?

Right now I am judging the member and his Prime Minister on the prices at the grocery store, which the Prime Minister said he would reduce. He said to judge him by the price of groceries. I am passing judgment on you right now. What do you plead, guilty or not guilty?

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

As a reminder, all comments are through the Chair. The Chair will not be pleading anything, but he will let other members do so.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Flamborough—Glanbrook—Brant North.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook—Brant North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley raises a good point. The Prime Minister said to Canadians to judge him on the price of groceries at the grocery store. We know that he has not actually visited a grocery store, but we also know that grocery price inflation is 40% higher in Canada than in the U.S. There have been multiple reports as to the food price pressures that Canadians are facing.

Why does the member think that the government would not do something as straightforward as scrapping the industrial carbon tax, which we heard about in committee, as a measure for increasing affordability?

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a mystery as to why the Liberal government will not go 100% of the way, in terms of taking the Conservative ideas to reduce the pressure on families. It is a mystery. All the government seems to do is water down Conservative ideas and take 50% of what we did. The carbon tax is a great example. The government is keeping the industrial carbon tax and keeping the International Maritime Organization's tax and then telling Canadians that this is somehow going to make our lives more affordable, when, in reality, we all know that it is not going to make a difference.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-4 sets out a GST rebate for first-time buyers of new homes. The Prime Minister promised this rebate in March, when he was Prime Minister. We went on the campaign trail, then we came back. The Prime Minister finally tabled the notice of ways and means and the bill.

Everyone who bought a home between the time the Prime Minister promised this rebate in March and the time of the election was denied the GST rebate. The Bloc Québécois and our Conservative colleagues had to table amendments to force the government to keep its word and grant the GST rebate to those who had been promised it, those who had been naive enough to believe the Prime Minister and who, in the end, would have been forced to pay the full price.

I would like my colleague to tell me why, in his opinion, the Prime Minister and the government decided to behave in this manner and why the government tried to take away a GST rebate that had been promised to thousands of Quebeckers and Canadians.

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is basically what the Liberal government has been doing for the last how many years, since I have been watching, anyway, in terms of not really looking after the average Canadian and not looking after low-income Canadians. If we look at the budget, for example, there are not many residents in my riding who can afford a $100-million yacht or a $100-million jet. Those poor billionaires who are maybe looking at the market for a second jet are going to be happy about this, especially corporations like Brookfield.

This is just an elitist budget looking after elitists.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy I was able to catch the Speaker's eye and join the debate. I appreciate the warm reception from my colleagues here in the chamber. I hope that they have that same enthusiasm after they hear what I have to say. Of course, I appreciate the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley for graciously sharing his time with me to take part in the debate. He is a great, valuable member of our team and a wonderful advocate for the people of northwest British Columbia.

Before I get into the substance of this piece of legislation, Bill C-4, I think it is important to look at this within the economic situation that we have after 10 years of the Liberal government. There is no question that we are in an affordability crisis. I hear from people all across northwestern Ontario that they are struggling to put food on their tables. They are struggling to fill their gas tanks to go to work or to travel for necessary medical appointments, often along the highways, which is the reality of living in rural northwest Ontario.

This is a crisis that people are feeling day to day. We see it in housing as well, as housing costs have doubled—

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order, with apologies to my hon. colleague and his speech.

I simply want to inform the House that I will be bringing forward a motion for the unanimous consent of the House to schedule a take-note debate on the auto sector for this Wednesday evening.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to continue the debate.

I was talking about this affordability crisis we are facing right across Canada and specifically in my region of northwest Ontario. We are seeing a housing crisis along with that. People are struggling to afford rent or housing for first-time homebuyers. Those who have a home are also worried about being able to hold on to it, with rising interest rates and the rising costs associated with that.

For younger people, many of them have given up completely on that dream of home ownership. It used to be the case in Canada that if a person played by the rules, worked hard, did the right things and got a good education, they could expect to have an affordable life, an affordable home, a safe neighbourhood and a good job, and to be able to pay the bills. That is the promise that has been broken after 10 years of Liberal policies.

We see this affordability crisis manifest itself at the grocery store as well, with food inflation on the rise. Stats Canada is reporting a massive increase in food costs, with beef up about 17%, chicken up 6.2%, apples up over 4%, carrots up 11%, and infant formula up nearly 6%. It is no wonder, with these rising costs, that over two million Canadians are visiting food banks in a single month. Again, that is a large national number. We see that happening in small communities across northwestern Ontario as well. I have spoken to individuals at food banks right across the region.

Recently, I had a chance to visit the food bank in Kenora. Thankfully, it had just received a lot of donations ahead of the Christmas season, but it is continuing to see an increase in people needing to visit the food bank, even just a couple times, just to get by. Of course, other people are struggling on a more steady basis and needing to visit more frequently. However, that demand has just continued to increase each year under this Liberal government, with the government's industrial carbon tax adding to the cost of food, and the food packaging tax and the Liberal fuel standard adding 17¢ per litre of gas, not to mention that the Liberal government's inflationary spending is driving up the cost of living. All of these things are adding to that cost of food.

If members look further than just the cost and the affordability crisis, Canada has the worst employment rate in about 25 years, and youth unemployment is at a record high that we have not seen since 2010, outside of the COVID-19 pandemic. All of this paints a picture of the economic situation we are in and why the Liberals are bringing forward Bill C-4, intending to make life more affordable for Canadians.

I would like to go into a bit more detail about this bill and the government's overall economic policy in terms of where it misses the mark. I would like to comment as well that in the budget we see just more of the same policies: bureaucratic spending driving up the cost of living, more taxes, and all of the things that are the status quo after 10 years of Liberal government.

The Prime Minister promised that spending would go down; it has increased by $90 billion. He promised the deficit would be $62 billion; it is now $78 billion. He promised that investment would go up, yet his own budget shows that investment will decline in Canada. We already heard today that the Prime Minister said he should be judged by prices at the grocery stores, but we know they are skyrocketing.

By every single measure, every single standard the Prime Minister has set for himself, he is missing the mark. Again, these are not the standards or the measures that I myself or the Conservative Party laid out for him. These are the measures that he has asked Canadians to hold him to account on, and he is failing on each and every one of them. While the bill does bring in some tax cuts, what they result in is about $90 per month in savings for the average Canadian. With Liberal inflation and spending, those savings are going to be wiped out.

The government has added, as I mentioned, $90 billion in new spending. That is $5,000 more in spending for every Canadian family, to put it in perspective, driving up the cost of living on all Canadians and pushing our fiscal situation to the point where we are going to be paying more to service our debt than the federal government is spending on health care transfers to the provinces.

This bill also brings in a GST rebate for first-time homebuyers purchasing new homes, and I think that is a very important aspect. It is for the purchase of new homes. I do not want to say it is none, but it is next to none. Virtually no first-time homebuyers in northwestern Ontario are going to be buying new homes. The majority of homes in northwestern Ontario are about 30 years old, give or take, and those are the ones that first-time homebuyers and young Canadians are going to be able to afford. Perhaps this is a well-intentioned policy on the part of the Liberal government, but it is one that, in practice, will not be effective for the vast majority of people in my region.

The Liberals, although looking to move on removing the consumer carbon tax, are leaving in place the industrial carbon tax. In fact, they have actually tripled that tax, and that is just going to make everything even more expensive, especially when it comes to the cost of food. Whether it is fertilizer on the farm, fuel in the trucks to ship it or power in the grocery store, this industrial carbon tax is still going to be passed down to consumers, just not in the more obvious way of the consumer price. Canadians are still paying for this carbon tax, even under the new Prime Minister's plan.

That is where I think this bill misses the mark. The Liberals have tried to adopt some Conservative ideas, but they have not gone far enough to actually implement them in the right way. As I mentioned earlier with the price of food, food inflation in Canada is rising faster than in nearly every other G7 nation. According to Stats Canada, grocery prices have risen more than 20% since 2020. Again, that is just to paint the picture of where we are.

Bill C-4, although bringing forward some steps in the right direction, at least from a rhetoric standpoint with the Liberal government, is not doing anything, nor is the budget doing anything, to address the real drivers of inflation, which are Liberal overspending, overtaxation and over-regulation. Those are the things that Conservatives are going to keep fighting against, and we are going to continue to stand for a plan that truly makes life more affordable for Canadians right across this country.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I do not believe the member's comment when he said that our grocery inflation rate is higher than all the other G7 countries. I do not believe that. I would appreciate it if he could provide the source he has drawn that conclusion from. Second, the member says it does not provide tax relief, but that is what Bill C-4 does. Bill C-4 provides direct tax relief for over 22 million Canadians. It also provides tax relief for first-time homebuyers through an exemption from the GST. It also, in law, deals with getting rid of the carbon tax.

How can the member say that it does not deal with the issue of taxation? Will the member not agree that given what the bill does, we should be passing it before Christmas?

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the member for Winnipeg North must not have been listening at all to any of the comments I was making.

In terms of the tax cuts being brought forward, it is going to be about $90 per month in savings for the average Canadian, but with Liberal inflation and Liberal spending, that is going to be completely wiped out. He mentions the GST relief for first-time homebuyers, but it is only if they are purchasing new homes, which is something that is very rare and pretty much non-existent across northwestern Ontario. That is something that is not going to be useful for people in my region.

The member talked about the carbon tax. Again, the Liberals are looking to take action on the consumer carbon tax, finally recognizing, after 10 years, what Canadians know all too well: the fact that it drives up the cost of living. However, they are leaving the industrial carbon tax in place, which is going to continue to drive up the cost of living for Canadians.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-4 is the story of a Prime Minister who runs in an election, promises everything but the kitchen sink, comes to sit in Parliament and then introduces a bill too quickly. The bill is poorly crafted and poorly thought out.

For example, for the tax cut where the first bracket is reduced by 1%, the government failed to consider all of the potential effects because it worked too quickly. Tax credits, particularly those for people with disabilities, are calculated in proportion to the first bracket rate. As a result, when the government lowered taxes, it also caused the most vulnerable members of society, particularly people with disabilities, to lose more with the tax cut than they gained from it.

I would like to know if my colleague agrees with me. When the government decides to make tax changes, including changes to personal income tax, should it not systematically submit a list of all those who are likely to see the amount of their tax credits change, so that we, as parliamentarians, can understand the real impact of these tax changes on all taxpayers, particularly the most vulnerable?

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member from the Bloc Québécois raises some very interesting, very compelling points. In response to that, all I can truly say is that it speaks to the broader discussion that I laid out in my speech around the fact that these policies being brought forward in Bill C-4, however well-intentioned they may be, are largely missing the mark in terms of what Canadians are looking for and the relief that Canadians deserve and need to see when it comes to tax cuts and relief from this cost-of-living crisis that, after 10 years, the Liberals have caused.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it seemed to me that the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader wanted some sort of pat on the back for some small, minuscule relief measures in Bill C-4, when at the same time and with the other hand, they are taking and stealing from the next generation with a generational debt binge.

I wonder if my hon. colleague from Kenora—Kiiwetinoong could give his comments on this apparent contradiction from the other side, where they sprinkle a few savings but then steal from the next generation.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is definitely what young Canadians are facing. That dream of Canada's promise has been taken away after 10 years of the Liberal government driving up the cost of living and pushing the cost of housing to the point that young Canadians are giving up on their dreams of home ownership. The Liberals are just moving forward with the exact same policies, which is going to continue to put more of a burden on future generations.

[Carlos Leitão, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, it is now my turn to speak to Bill C-4. I want to mention that my colleagues across the way spoke of minuscule savings. While it may seem minuscule to them, in my riding, in Laval, every dollar counts. I will not presume to know what constitutes minuscule savings for someone in serious need.

I am going to talk a little about Bill C-4, but I also want to talk about my riding of Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, in Laval. I want to talk about what the bill means to my riding. I will talk a bit about Laval. If I have enough time, I would like to come back to the matter of rising food prices.

To begin, I will start with Bill C-4. The bill responds to our government's priority of building an economy that works for everyone and taking concrete steps to make life more affordable for Canadians. The bill follows up on three of the government's initial announcements: cutting taxes for nearly 22 million middle-class Canadians, eliminating the GST for first-time homebuyers on new homes worth up to $1 million, and eliminating consumer carbon pricing legislation. Those are the three main components of Bill C-4.

What does that mean in my riding, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, in Laval? I would like to say a few words about my riding and the Laval region. As many people know, this city north of Montreal has one of the fastest-growing populations in Quebec. I believe there are now 460,000 people living in Laval. In the part of Laval that I represent, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, there are a lot of young families, but there are also older people who live in the more traditional part of that riding, in the former village of Sainte-Rose. It is a vast area where there is still a lot of land and agriculture in a somewhat urban setting. It presents quite a challenge. There is still plenty of land that could be used for housing. This is being done intelligently and in a way that is aligned with our desire to preserve green spaces.

The population of Laval is younger than the average. During the election campaign in April, we heard a lot about housing issues. Indeed, it is a very serious problem. The city's ability to support some degree of densification in Laval is helping to keep housing prices at a relatively affordable level, but there is pressure on prices and on access to home ownership.

That is why Bill C-4 is very well received back home in Laval. The second component, the elimination of GST on the purchase of new homes, can represent a significant savings of $20,000 to $25,000 on the purchase of a new home. There are new homes being built in Laval. There has been steady construction in Laval. I am not talking about Quebec as a whole, but Laval, where construction is progressing at a very good pace.

Young families will certainly benefit from this GST reduction. This effort will help many young families achieve their dream of owning a house or an apartment. It will also increase urban density and therefore encourage construction.

The housing problem is really a supply problem. The cost of housing is so high mainly because supply has not kept pace with population growth, even though supply in Laval has increased much more quickly than elsewhere in Canada. Still, with these measures and those of the city, which is very supportive of real estate development, I think we will be able to provide affordable housing in our region.

Laval's economy is very diverse, but obviously manufacturing is very important to our region. It creates a lot of jobs, which are generally well paid. Fortunately for us in Laval, the manufacturing sector is very diverse. No single industry is more prominent than another; it is very diverse. There are truly cutting-edge industries, especially in the life sciences, for example. Consider Moderna's vaccine plant, which is located in Laval. There are all kinds of other SMEs in aerospace and other fields.

Everything related to the uncertainty surrounding trade with our American neighbours is of great concern to us in Laval. During the election campaign, citizens told us that it was absolutely essential for us to be able to stand on our own two feet and find a way to maintain our access to the U.S. market.

There is one thing that is often overlooked and should be considered, which is that 85% of Canadian manufacturing exports to the United States still enter the United States without paying taxes or customs duties if they comply with CUSMA.

Because the manufacturing sector in Laval is highly diversified, exports remain very strong, but this uncertainty plays a very important role in any new investment project. We are seeing a major slowdown. We will have to pay close attention to this, because the creation of new jobs is currently being affected by the fact that most companies are waiting to see what the rules of the game will be a little later with regard to trade with our neighbours in the United States.

It is really the housing market that sets Laval apart from the rest of the province. I think that, even across Canada, it is relatively unique, because there is a lot of activity. There is a lot of construction going on. Prices are still reasonably affordable. There is an effort to increase the city's density. One of the problems resulting from all this is the significant challenge related to transportation and public transit as the population grows. Access to subways and public transit is becoming an issue.

The budget therefore also includes measures to improve local infrastructure and transport infrastructure, which is certainly welcome.

When it comes to Bill C-4 and the tax cut, let me be clear. When we talk about reducing income taxes, the people who will benefit from a tax cut are those who pay taxes. Someone on a very low income who pays very little tax is obviously not going to benefit from a significant tax cut, since they do not pay much tax to begin with.

There are other social measures provided by the federal and provincial governments to meet the needs of people with very low incomes, such as old age security, the guaranteed income supplement and, for younger people, the Canada child benefit. There is a whole series of social programs that support people with lower incomes.

An income tax cut has a real and significant impact for the middle class. It is not minuscule. I mention that because, recently, we have talked a lot in the House about the cost of living and especially about the pressure on food prices, and with good reason. Food prices are very high, even though inflation, the annual increase in prices, is much more under control than it was a few years ago. Prices really started skyrocketing as of 2022 and have now reached problematic levels, which is affecting a lot of families in Canada.

However, it is also important to note that, if the federal government started to massively reduce its programs to assist families, whether it be the Canada child benefit, old age security, the guaranteed income supplement or the national school food program, like our Conservative colleagues are implicitly suggesting, that would make life even more difficult for low-income Canadians. It would take away a big part of their safety net.

Furthermore, these are primarily international issues. Canada is not the only country where food prices are high. This is happening in the United States, in Europe, and more or less everywhere. I would say that we are now facing a structural change. For a long time, in North America, in developed countries, in Europe, and in Japan, we saw a long decline in food prices for all sorts of reasons, such as technological discoveries and new means of production. There was a structural decline in food prices shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, but certainly after the pandemic, we saw this long-term trend change. We are now seeing upward pressure on food prices around the world, regardless of the Canadian government's fiscal and budgetary policies, which have no impact on the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, or crops affected by climate change.

Our friends often cite the price of coffee as an example. Coffee is imported, but more importantly, harvests have been poor, especially in Brazil, but also, to a lesser extent, in Africa. There is less coffee on the world market. It is a question of supply and demand.

There is also a lot of talk about the price of meat. In North America, in the United States and Canada, structurally speaking, herds are smaller now than they were a few years ago. We have moved from a period of meat surplus to a period where herds are much smaller. This creates an imbalance between supply and demand. This puts upward pressure on the price of meat, sugar, cocoa and so on. All of these products, which are imported, are affected by climate change, and the supply of these products is decreasing.

It is not simply a matter of an industrial carbon tax. That is not it. In fact, every study completed shows that an industrial carbon tax has very little impact on consumer prices. While that may not be the case 10 years from now, at the moment, the impact of the industrial carbon tax on food prices is virtually zero. It really is a matter of supply and demand. It truly is an international issue.

In fact, the situation points to a need for more collaboration and international co-operation. My Conservative colleagues also talk a lot about massive cuts to Canada's international aid. They believe that Canada should drastically slash its international development assistance. Right now would be the worst time to do that. If we think that we have food problems, in a rich country like Canada, imagine what it is like for countries with fewer resources than us that rely on international aid to feed their people. I fail to understand how, at this point in human history, we can consider cutting international aid to less fortunate countries. This is really not the time for that.

I see that my time is almost up. I have a lot more to say, but I think I will continue at the next opportunity.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to pick up on a thread one of my colleagues was talking about earlier, with regard to Bill C-4 and the rebate on new housing.

We know that most first-time homebuyers do not purchase newly built homes. There is a phrase, “starter home”, that usually means an older house, smaller in square footage but more cost-friendly to purchase. This is what first-time homebuyers are looking to purchase.

We wanted the tax removed for all people buying a newly built home, and the Liberals changed that. Why would they do that?

[Carlos Leitão, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to say that it depends on many factors. The situation is not uniform across the country. As I said at the beginning of my speech, back home in Laval, it is quite the opposite. The new homes currently being built are affordable for middle-class families.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I must interrupt the parliamentary secretary, as it is now 6:30 p.m. He may use the remainder of his speaking time for questions and comments the next time this bill comes before the House.