Madam Speaker, I was just running my timer.
Nonetheless, there is the work that needs to be done to make life more affordable in Canada and to reduce the inflation rate. What kind of tools does the government have at its disposal to reduce the inflation rate? Taxation is a big part of the tools the government has. We, as Conservatives, are calling on the government to impose no new taxes.
On January 1 we will have a brand new tax increase on CPP and EI premiums. Happy new year. They are not optional fees for people to pay. If they were optional, the government may have been able to get away with not calling them taxes, but they will come off of people's paycheques whether they like it or not. They are taxes. That will reduce the amount of money people take home. They will make people's paycheques smaller, essentially. That will not help the inflation situation. It is not necessarily driving inflation, but it is one of the things that will not help people get over the inflation hump, so to speak.
On the other side of this, on April 1 the carbon tax will go up. The carbon tax is very much an inflationary tax. The carbon tax gets built into the cost of everything. Whether it is the shoes we wear, the food we eat, driving to work, driving the kids to school, or driving anywhere, the carbon tax is making all of that exponentially more expensive.
One thing that happens is that the carbon tax gets added into every part of the economy. When the raw products are taken out of the ground or the trees are taken out of the forest, the trucks that haul the trees to the lumber mill are paying for the carbon tax on their fuel. That cost gets built into the transportation costs of bringing the raw product out of the forest to the mill. The mill has to pay the carbon tax on the energy the mill uses to process that, so there is another added cost. As well, all of the packaging materials and supplies the mill needs are being shipped to that mill and they are paying the carbon tax on the products that are coming in, which is adding an increased cost.
Most of these mills are publicly traded. Our pension funds are probably invested in these particular companies. As everybody wants to retire, they want a return on their investment. They are looking for a nominal 10% return on their investments. There is an expectation that no matter what the costs are to that particular mill, they have to turn a profit, so they are going to increase the cost. When the carbon tax on all of these different things is added to their input, it raises the cost of their input. When they sell their products, lumber for example, they are going to have to increase the price of lumber in order to get the 10% return they are offering to their shareholders and people who have invested in the stock market. There is that dramatic increase.
As that carbon tax is bumped up, it cascades through the economy making it more expensive. I never even talked about that lumber getting delivered. The carbon tax will be charged as part of the costs of the truck driver for hauling it, including the diesel fuel needed for that particular truck hauling that lumber away from the mill to the local lumber yard. The local lumber yard is paying carbon tax on the natural gas they burn to keep the building warm. They are paying it on what they deliver. By the time someone gets that lumber delivered to their yard, there may not be a line on the invoice for that lumber that says “carbon tax” but rest assured that a significant amount of the cost of that two-by-four will be for carbon tax.
The increase in the carbon tax on April 1, in particular, could be paused by the government. The government could pause that increase instead of ramping it up to three times from what it currently is. It could pause it or it could remove the carbon tax. The removal of the carbon tax would have the dramatic effect of reducing the cost of things across the country. I think that currently the carbon tax on gasoline is 12¢ a litre.
Imagine if, in much the same way as Alberta has done, the provincial fuel tax was removed. When oil went over $90 a barrel, Alberta removed the fuel tax, causing a dramatic decrease in the price of fuel, which made life more affordable. People could get to work and their paycheques could go further. I hear more frequently from people who are having to ration their funds with respect to what they are buying and how they are heating their homes just so they can buy fuel for their pickup truck to make it to wherever they work.
The Conservatives are calling for two things. One is a reduction in, the removal of, or no increase to the carbon tax on April 1. This would help to stem the tide of inflation and dramatically improve the cost of things. Two is no increase to the payroll taxes. This would allow people's paycheques to pay for all the things they need.
The Conservatives are also calling on the government to quit borrowing money, quit raising taxes and quit raising inflation. We are calling on the government to stop borrowing money. We are calling for a one-to-one ratio. When the government wants to spend new money on a new program or a new initiative, it has to go back to the budget and find where there are some savings, whether that is from a program it is not interested in using anymore or it does not need. As society progresses, we see the government spend money and then, over time, the programs are not necessarily needed any longer. We are looking for that one-to-one savings, no new taxes, and for the government to balance the budget in the coming years.