Thank you very much.
Certainly, we Conservatives agree that there's an affordability crisis in Canada. We've seen record numbers for food bank usage, with two million Canadians or more using food banks and I believe an additional million expected this year. In addition to that, we also now have a dumpster diving Facebook group in Toronto, with over 8,000 members. The cost of food has never been higher in Canada. It's never been so far out of reach.
We're also facing a productivity crisis. It has gotten to the point where nearly all economists are now talking about Canada's productivity crisis. We even have international attention from economists and those who comment on the business community, with our sputtering GDP per capita.
I think there's a very easy solution to reducing the cost of food. That is to reduce or eliminate the carbon tax. Instead, we are increasing the cost of the carbon tax.
Of course, the carbon tax is not just put on the end-user. The carbon tax is put on our farmers, who of course plant and harvest our crops utilizing their tractors, and on those who truck our food and who take it across Canada. There's a carbon tax on multiple levels.
The PBO has told us that even with the Canada carbon rebate—I hope I got that right, guys, on the Liberal side; I want to make sure I get your branding right— that there's a net loss in every province where the backstop applies. In Ontario, it's about $600. In Alberta, it's $1,000. I believe it's even a net negative in Manitoba. If I were going to be an adviser on intergovernmental relations, this might be where I start.
Certainly, Conservatives have been in agreement that there needs to be greater competition, but there's a very simple solution and that is to spike the hike and axe the tax.