Thank you.
I'll go back to Ms. Bergen's point about the minister's mistake when she claimed that Canada's greater risk was deflation, rather than inflation. Six months earlier, Conservatives had begun warning about the inflation threat, yet she went out in October of 2020, when house prices were already rising.... They were up 12% in half a year, mortgage lending was ballooning and stock markets were rising. Since she made her prediction about deflation, there has not actually been a single month of deflation in Canada. In fact, now we have the highest inflation in two decades, and we have a housing price inflation of 20% since she took office, including a 20% increase in land prices, which of course are not linked in any way, shape or form to supply chains.
This mistake that she made, against our warnings, has great consequences. Food prices are going to go up a thousand dollars this year for single mothers who can't afford to pay their bills. Young people are living in their parents' basements because they can't afford homes—something the minister was celebrating a moment ago, when she thought all of this asset price inflation was a good thing. Today, her only defence is that it's great that the stock market is up.
Sure. For the plutocrats, that is great news. Their assets have been inflated by the minister's excessive spending and money creation, as have millionaire mansion owners in her social circles. However, for working-class folks who can't afford stocks, houses, bonds or the other things that she's inflating, all they have is a real—