Thank you. This is an opportunity, once again, to do what is right by Canadians.
I'll say at the outset that I do expect a ruling that you'll find this out of order, but I would hope that we would listen to our constituents and that we would overturn the chair's eventual ruling.
This amendment would allow us to undo the damage going forward with respect to the carbon tax. We wish that we could give the carbon tax relief retroactively and that the last nine years had just been a bad nightmare, but, unfortunately, it is the reality that we live in.
We live, unfortunately, in a country where GDP per capita is now in the sixth quarter of negativity, meaning that every Canadian on average has gotten poorer over the last year and a half. In fact, since 2018, we have seen a zero increase in GDP per capita. We are facing a high rate of inflation. It's still outside the range, and many economists are now predicting that this last mile of reducing inflation will be the hardest, in Canada particularly. We've had the deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, Carolyn Rogers, say that this is a made-in-Canada issue, particularly with respect to productivity.
Every policy decision that I would hope that any government would make, given the fact that productivity is a crisis of standard of living.... When standards of living decline, it's the most vulnerable who often get hurt the most, and this will be the case here.
We're looking at a tax that is no doubt reducing our productivity, not only domestically, where we've seen the inflationary impact and the cost of everything going up, but also in terms of affecting our international competitiveness.
Of course, the United States of America doesn't have a carbon tax, and we are competing every day against American businesses. Mexico has a very tiny carbon tax that barely needs mentioning. The companies in Mexico and the United States have a competitive advantage, and they are our most direct competitors.
In the PRC, they do not have a carbon tax either. Major manufacturing companies, our closest neighbours and many of our peer nations do not have a carbon tax, which puts Canadian businesses at a disadvantage. When we look at the inflationary impact of the carbon tax and the economic impact, most importantly, as I said earlier, it is the most vulnerable who are being hurt the most by the carbon tax.
Even NDP leader Jagmeet Singh commented about the difficult parts of the carbon tax. They wouldn't come out and completely say that they weren't supporting it, but he did comment negatively about aspects of the carbon tax. Maybe Don will share with us that the NDP are going to be against the consumer-faced carbon tax. This would be an opportunity for the NDP to take a stand and start separating themselves from their Liberal coalition partner. We know it's just a matter of time as they see the sinking ship going down.
This is an opportunity for everyone to do what's right for their constituents by reducing inflation, reducing the cost of living and helping our most vulnerable. Let's axe the tax.