Madam Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Whitby, she has a lot of people who live in urban settings and probably will not see as big a cost associated with this tax grab, which is going to come out with this $50-a-tonne carbon tax, compared to what rural Canadians are going to face, what northern communities are going to have to deal with, and how it is going to impact agriculture. However, one way they are going to see it, especially those who are living on fixed and low incomes, is in the price of food.
We know that a $50-a-tonne carbon tax will increase the price of fuel by 11.5¢ per litre. That translates into higher production costs, higher transportation costs for getting products to market, and higher costs for growing those products. It will actually disadvantage locally produced foods over imported foods, since trucks coming in from the U.S. will bring it in at a cheaper rate on cheaper U.S. fuel compared to what our truckers are going to pay here in Canada.
Could my colleague from Whitby explain to me how she will explain to her own constituents why they are going to be paying so much for locally grown produce?