Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this evening and take part in these Adjournment Proceedings.
When I last addressed this issue in the House, it was a question to the Prime Minister about housing affordability. We are hearing a lot about cost of living and housing affordability challenges that Canadians are facing right across our country from coast to coast to coast. We are seeing those same challenges in my community of Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.
It is staggering to think more than 80% of Canadians between the ages of 18 and 28 worry they will not be able to afford a home in their city of choice thanks to soaring real estate prices and a skyrocketing cost of living. This cost of living crisis affects people when they are at the grocery store. We have seen the forecast for next year, with families expected to pay $1,000 and more per year in groceries, with prices on dairy up 8%, fruit up 5%, and bread and vegetables up 7%. That is going to hurt people every time they try to feed their families.
Gasoline for people's cars is forecasted in some parts of the country to be up to $2 per litre. Where I live, driving a car is not a luxury, it is a necessary reality for so many folks. The vast majority of my riding does not have public transit people can hop on. One cannot take the subway or the light rail from Kemptville to Prescott. One cannot take it from Brockville to Gananoque. People are driving between those locations. They are driving to get to work, to get to medical appointments, and to take their kids to dance or hockey.
Why do we have skyrocketing increases to people's cost of living? We know there has been a half-trillion dollars of Liberal deficits that have ballooned our inflation to an 18-year high. It is currently pegged at an 18-year high. We will see what that number looks like in a couple of days.
There are a couple of things the government could do to address this instead of saying that it is bad everywhere, that we will compare outrages and that we are not as bad as some other people and better than others so it is really nothing to worry about. Folks trying to feed their families, put gas in their cars to get to work and who need to heat their homes are worried about it.
We can produce more Canadian world-class energy and we can cancel planned payroll taxes that will hurt small businesses and their employees alike. We need to get government spending under control. We had our opposition day motion that pitched real solutions on the housing crisis to the government, which it voted against.
There are options available such as making government real estate available, banning foreign investment in Canadian properties and of course committing to Canadians that the government will never introduce a capital gains tax on their properties. The government has to take real steps today to end “just inflation”, and that is what we are calling on the government to do.