That won't be enough time to say what I have to say about this. I support this subamendment to the motion that's on the table here.
I think that anybody who hasn't paid attention to the fact that Canadians want an election on the carbon tax at this point in time has clearly not paid attention to their constituents all summer long. Having been out there at numerous fairs, I can guarantee you that it is no longer at all about the issues. It's “Can you please get rid of these people who are making life more expensive, primarily through the carbon tax?”
I challenge my Liberal colleagues across the table, as well as my NDP colleagues. Are you actually so tone-deaf that you don't want to put this in front of Canadians and you want to continue to keep your feet in the sand and pretend that this is not the major issue facing Canadians today or that they don't actually want to have a say in how they're paying these taxes?
We've had the Parliamentary Budget Officer here giving clear indications that the government has been misleading Canadians for a long time now about how much this tax is actually costing them, and that's where a political price is going to be paid.
That's one of the reasons Canadians are fed up. If you told Canadians, “This is what this tax is costing you. This is how much inflation it is costing you. This is what it's doing to your buying power in terms of groceries and everything else you can buy that's supplied in society, because everything has a carbon footprint”, then they would accept that as being honest and being forward-looking as far as what they can do to help the environment goes. However, they have been completely misled, and now Canadians across the country are well aware of that. They know they've been misled about the cost of this carbon tax. They see it in the price of everything, in the inflation that's gone up and in the mounting deficits that this government is running. They definitely want their say on that, and in a democracy their say happens in an election.
I know people are pounding the pavement in Calgary Centre, saying, “Please do something to stop this government from moving forward any further on this.” The tone-deafness of this government is beyond the pale, and I think the subamendment to the motion, Mr. Chair, exemplifies that very clearly. Let's get to an election on this issue, because you cannot continue to divide Canadians around other issues when this has been the major issue facing them, their pocketbooks, their families, their jobs, their lifestyles, their homes and their food for so long now.
Can we please move forward and actually get this subamendment passed so that we can deal with this in a proper way by having an election for all Canadians?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.