It's very important to Canadians.
This is one of the policies, which are stacking, that are making life more unaffordable for not only Saskatchewan residents but all Canadians as a whole. It's making industries less competitive. Those are industries that employ people in my community and quite likely in yours as well, and it is showing no measurable impact when it comes to reducing emissions.
I would point to the inflationary aspect of the carbon tax specifically today. When the latest consumer price index came out, Saskatchewan was at 1.7%, down from the 2% projected target that the Bank of Canada hit and one full point lower than the Canadian average. Statistics Canada said specifically that this was due to a decision the Saskatchewan government made to remove the carbon tax from home heating. You can imagine what would happen to our CPI nationwide if we were to pause, first of all, and then remove the consumer carbon tax on Canadians.
Where does this bring us today when we think about never saying never? That same Bank of Canada, over the last two years, has increased our interest rates on 10 different occasions. Just this week, they declared that Canada is in a productivity “emergency”. We don't need to accept this moving forward. We can make changes. Never say never. There is another way, and Saskatchewan has been working towards that for some time.
The Bank of Canada also indicated that investment needs to be brought into our nation. Saskatchewan is second in the nation when we compare, on a per capita basis, provincial investment today. We were up 25% last year and we're projected to be first this coming year, with another 14% increase. All Canadians need to encourage a competitive investment environment in each of our provinces and more broadly across the nation.
There are opportunities for us to take our investment and innovation and share it through commerce with the rest of the world. We should share it through article 6 of the Paris Agreement, for example, which this government signed and which I worked on as the environment minister with one of the previous environment ministers. Article 6 is an opportunity for us to create policies that allow for that investment and, in turn, share those investment innovations with the rest of the world through commerce by employing Canadians in my community and yours and utilizing some of the tools we have, such as article 6. There is another way. Never say never.
We need to ensure we are looking at some of our competitive environments, those that are employing people and creating wealth in our communities across this nation, to ensure they're providing the platform to attract capital investment and attract jobs. Ultimately, they would provide the opportunity for Canada to not be in a state of productivity emergency, but to be in a state where we are leading the world with the productivity we are experiencing as Canadians. Traditionally, that is what we all would like to achieve, and I hope that we will find some consensus on that today.
I wore my red tie in the spirit of collaboration. I wear it to our Council of the Federation meetings, where we come together from different political backgrounds and different political stripes in an effort and with an initiative to find a consensus on behalf of the Canadians we collectively represent at that table. This is an opportunity for all of us, those in the minority government we have today and those in opposition, to do what is in the best interests of Canadians. It's not just for today but for the future as well when it comes to creating jobs, sharing some of the sustainable innovations that have been invested in already in our nation and enhancing the opportunity for additional investments in those innovations in the industries we do well in.
The fact of the matter is that from a Saskatchewan perspective, we produce food, fuel and fertilizer. Not only do we produce the highest quality and most affordable food, fuel and fertilizer you can find in the world, which we produce for over 150 countries around the world, but we produce the most sustainable food, fuel and fertilizer you can find on earth. I think that is something for each of us to remember.
Never say never. We can always do better, and we should be making every effort to do that around this table on behalf of the folks we represent.
Thank you.