Debates of Sept. 27th, 2022

Opposition Motion—Carbon Tax

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would tell constituents, number one, that there is a rebate for the price on pollution, whereby 80% of Canadians actually get back more money than they pay. I would also tell them that I am going to be voting in favour of Bill C-30 and Bill C-31. Bill C-30 would literally put hundreds of dollars into the pockets of 11 million people to help combat inflation. I would tell them that when they take a look at Bill C-31, they will see a dental care plan so that those who have challenges with their financial needs will be able to get their children dental work. As opposed to having to pay for it, it would be claimed back.

Literally hundreds if not thousands of dollars are going back into the pockets of people to help them through this challenging time of inflation. That is what I would say.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very simple question for my colleague.

The topic of the day is inflation. The Conservatives have their reasons for talking about the carbon tax.

Does my colleague agree that seniors are among those who are struggling most because of inflation? Does he agree that seniors are suffering the most because of inflation and that, more than anyone else, they have been abandoned by his government? My question is quite simple and straightforward.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member's statement that seniors are one of the most affected groups because they are on fixed incomes. However, I would totally disagree with abandoning them.

If the member takes a look, right from the word “go” when we first took office back in 2015, we enhanced senior services, both directly and indirectly. If he takes a look at the pandemic, again we have supported our seniors, whether it is through the GIS, OAS, indexing based on COLA, the direct payments that have led to thousands of dollars or the 10% increase for seniors over 75. This is not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars we have provided to non-profit organizations to continue to support and provide services for seniors. No government in the history of Canada, I would argue, has been there in such a significant way to support our seniors from coast to coast to coast.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague spent some time talking about policy that makes sense. While it is true that the Liberals have talked a great deal about the climate crisis since 2015, they have not yet hit a target they have set and emissions are higher today than they were when they took office in 2015.

Under the output-based pricing system, Canada's biggest polluters pay the lowest carbon tax rate. Oil and gas companies are only paying a tiny fraction of the cost of their pollution, and 80% to 90% of emissions are exempt. Suncor only pays one-fourteenth of the full carbon price. Of course, the government bought and is building a TMX bitumen pipeline and approved Bay du Nord, which will increase carbon emissions in this country.

How can the member tell Canadians that this makes any sense?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, whether it is working with the Province of Alberta on TMX or working with the NDP provincial government of B.C. on LNG, making good on ideas that are going to have positive income at the end of the day is something we very much want to see take place.

That is one of the reasons this is not just about the short term. We should also be thinking long term. We have a commitment through legislation to hit net zero by 2050. There are also targets established for every five years, I believe, and there is a review process to ensure that we are able to maintain those targets. In the short term we are there, and in the long term we will be there too.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Foothills. I always learn so much when he is on his feet.

I appreciate the opportunity to rise and debate today.

Make no mistake: Inflation is a very serious concern. Inflation, as we all know, leads to the Bank of Canada raising interest rates, and that creates a whole new number of very serious concerns. Yesterday, before I began writing this speech, I came across a tweet from the Bank of Canada that said, “The high cost of living is felt daily by everyone, particularly people with fixed incomes. To control #inflation, we need higher interest rates to bring it down. By moving quickly now, we can avoid even higher rates later on.”

I have spoken with many of my constituents at length about this issue and continue to hear almost daily from citizens about this serious concern. Based upon what I am hearing, parts of that tweet from the Bank of Canada simply are not accurate. When the Bank of Canada says, “The high cost of living is felt daily by everyone”, it is simply not true. Wealthy individuals, those who have no debt, have told me that while they are concerned, they themselves are not impacted at all. Some have even suggested they are coming out ahead, as their investments, in some cases, are now earning higher interest.

I do not bring this up to pick on the Bank of Canada, but the bank is naive in suggesting that we are all in this together when it comes to higher costs of living. This simply does not affect people with more wealth that way.

To the credit of the Bank of Canada, it does acknowledge that the higher cost of living does seriously impact those on fixed incomes, and that is absolutely true. However, there is another group of citizens the bank ignores, and it is those who carry debt with variable interest rates, also known as the working poor. To them, the higher costs of living are a serious concern. The only greater concern to them, and it is a much greater concern, is the higher interest rates from the Bank of Canada itself.

Last week, I heard from a household in Kelowna that now has to come up with an extra $900 a month to cover the higher interest rates on the mortgage payment. This is a family of four, and they do not have a spare $900 a month sitting around. Few working families do.

I should also point out that the Liberal stress test itself, in some cases, forces people to take a variable interest rate because they do not qualify for a fixed rate. People are often left to make a decision: Do they get into a variable mortgage rate on a house, which is often cheaper than renting? Then they find out that with the interest rates going up, they are barely hanging on.

What are they to do? They could try selling, although there is no guarantee that this would not leave them further in debt. Worse still, there is nothing they could rent for any less than what they are paying in a mortgage. They live in fear that the Bank of Canada will raise rates even further, and who can blame them for being fearful?

What does that situation have to do with our motion today? As the Bank of Canada says in the same tweet, “To control #inflation, we need higher interest rates to bring it down.” However, here is the thing. According to the Liberal government, as we have heard many times now, inflation has nothing to do with it. It is all related to supply chain problems outside of Canada, it claims. For higher gas prices, which we know is one of the stronger drivers of inflation, the Liberals blame Putin. If the Liberals are telling us the truth that all of this is due to factors outside of Canada, how does the Bank of Canada raising interest rates fix international supply chain problems or stop Putin? It does not, of course.

Let us all stop for a moment to ask an obvious question. Given that we have all witnessed how dramatically rising gas prices can drive inflation, is it not a reasonable question to ask what factors drive the price of gasoline that the Liberal government can actually do something about? It turns out we have an obvious answer here: the Liberal carbon tax. In fact, our very own Bank of Canada governor has written a letter on this to the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance. In that letter, he says, “According to the Bank’s calculations, if the charge were to be removed from the three main fuel components of the consumer price index (gasoline, natural gas and fuel oil) it would reduce the inflation rate by 0.4 percentage points.” Just so we are clear, the charge is the charge of the Liberal carbon tax.

There we have it in writing from the Bank of Canada. The carbon tax, at its current rate, adds almost half a percentage point to our inflation. As we know, the Liberal carbon tax is set to triple, even though the Liberals promised before the last election that they would not do that.

I can already hear the howls of outrage from some within the Liberal caucus: “But the rebates, the rebates will triple.” Here is the thing. The rebates, as I have concluded recently in this place in a different speech, may well help some to get ahead. As an example, for the finance minister living in Toronto without a car, she would likely come out a winner, but for people in my riding, living in a community such as Hedley, they will not be so lucky. Why? Because in Hedley there is no high school. There is no middle school. There is no hospital. There are no major grocery stores and few public transit options are available.

People in Hedley have two choices: drive west to Princeton or drive east to Keremeos. Sometimes they may have to drive to Penticton, which is even farther away. That same situation occurs for much of rural Canada.

Why should these people be punished with a carbon tax for living in a community that they can afford to live in? Why should someone be punished with a carbon tax for trying to heat their home in the cold winter months? People with older, poorly insulated homes that cost more to heat do get punished. Punished for what? In British Columbia, where we have Canada's oldest carbon tax, the emissions continue to rise, not unlike federally where the government has missed every single emissions target it has ever set.

In other words, we have a carbon tax that inflicts financial pain as it does not treat people equally. It does not actually reduce emissions, and the Bank of Canada confirms that it actually drives up inflation, which hurts everyone. These are facts that can be verified. Worse, our major trading partners, the United States and Mexico, do not have carbon taxes. The United States is supposed to come out with its own plan to fight climate change, but of course it is doing so with a focus on technological improvements and new standards, not a carbon tax. When the government says that any plan has to include a carbon tax to be taken seriously, how is this line of reasoning expected to be taken seriously when it comes to our largest trading partner, the United States, refusing to add an inflationary divisive measure like a carbon tax?

Why are energy companies like TC Energy focusing more on places in Mexico than their home country, particularly during a moment when the world is clearly in need of more energy, not less?

While North America has seen a drop in energy prices in recent months, one has to ask when the American strategic reserve, by law, has to start refilling. When demand from the American federal government and the American consumers start rippling through our integrated energy markets here in Canada, will we not have wished that we had done more work by Canadian companies and the government to secure our own energy security, rather than the reserves of other countries like the United States and Mexico?

It does not end there. The forestry companies that owned the last three lumber mills that shut down in B.C. did not leave forestry. They have opened three new lumber mills all in the United States where they will pay zero carbon taxes. They will also pay zero of the Liberals' increased payroll taxes as well, but that is a topic for a different debate.

Recently, at the end of August, one of the largest recreational boat builders closed shop in Kelowna. They moved their operations down to Texas and perhaps Mexico. Guess how much carbon tax they will pay there. The answer, of course, is zero.

To recap, it is true that there are some problems outside of our control in Canada but, make no mistake, we have families here right across this country who are barely hanging on and who cannot afford another interest rate hike from the Bank of Canada.

What if there is something else we could do to help the cost of living? There is something we can do and we can do it as soon as possible. Stop the government's plan to triple the carbon tax. This will do two things. It will help lower inflation. Also, it will help increase affordability. It is for these reasons I will be supporting this motion. If the government is not prepared to do those things for Canadians, so be it. However, the government should not pretend that all these challenges are from outside of Canada when indeed we do have a made-in-Canada solution, more so now as winter is coming.

I ask all hon. members to please consider voting in support of this motion. I would also like to pass on my thanks for listening to my comments here today on behalf of my constituents.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Mr. Speaker, in his discussion today, the member said that any plan has to have a carbon tax. That is simply untrue. Quebec does not have a carbon tax. Quebec has used a very progressive system of cap and trade that was done through collaboration with Ontario and California, as I indicated earlier in my questions and comments.

In the United States, several jurisdictions have various different forms of pricing pollution. One of them I just mentioned. In fact, 14 out of 31 OECD countries have some form of pricing pollution. Therefore, for this member to make a comment that any system has to have a carbon tax to be effective, that is just not the reality of what is going on in Canada right now and in the rest of the world.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the hon. member raises the Quebec cap-and-trade system. It is a really good thing to focus on. As the carbon tax increases in other parts of the country, tripling, and causing all sorts of economic hardships for families, as well as for industries I should add, if the Quebec cap-and-trade system does not increase, then it will be out of sync with the government's own stated plans.

The second part of that point is that if the cap-and-trade is artificially raised by the Government of Canada, either through a second carbon tax or by pressuring the Government of Quebec, we will not have people in the American markets purchasing them in Quebec markets. That will nullify that system and make it so that it is impossible for Quebeckers to be able to carry on with the system.

The government needs to start actually deciding which is more important. Is it to have affordability, to deal with inflation and to allow for proper functioning of some of these markets? They are just talking about more intervention, higher prices and more inflation for everyone.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I am a little tired of hearing the same old story from the Conservatives. It is agonizing, like listening to a family member play an album with one terrible song over and over ad nauseam. Can we move on to something else?

One thing I know for sure is that the tax does not apply in Quebec, as the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands said. People do not come up to me on the street to talk about the carbon tax. What they want is concrete measures to fight inflation.

I am a little discouraged by the Liberals, who are letting things unfold without really doing anything; by the Conservatives, who are challenging the Bank of Canada's independence while calling for more restrictive monetary policy; and by the New Democrats, who want to implement measures that would only make inflation worse.

In short, I am pretty proud to represent a political party that is the grown-up in the room, a party that has put forward concrete solutions to inflation, such as dealing with the labour shortage. That is what people want to talk about, and that is what can help fight inflation.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly listened to this member. When she stands up to speak on behalf of her constituents, I find her to be a very strong member with firm things to say, but to trivialize other legitimate points of view in a democracy and to say that one person is the adult in the room trivializes everyone else. I think it is actually unbecoming of her as a member and of this place.

She can disagree that my constituents believe these kinds of policies are inflationary and cause affordability issues, but I do not think she should trivialize them and say that, somehow, she is the only adult in the room. I think there is room in this country for many adults with distinct ideas on how this country should be managed.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member started off well, pointing out that inflation does hit lower-income Canadians more than it hits higher-income Canadians, but he seems to forget that we are debating his party's motion here, which is about the carbon tax.

Right now, we have seen, in British Columbia, our home province, his and mine, that gas prices have increased about a dollar a litre this year. Two cents of that increase was from the carbon tax. The bulk of that increase was not from the price of oil. It was from greed. It was from big oil and gas companies seeing an opportunity and putting up the price of oil by a tremendous amount, fuelling inflation, and now he says that the federal government cannot do anything about that.

It can. It can put a windfall tax on those profits, those profits from greed, and take that money, billions of dollars, and distribute it in various ways to the people in Canada who are suffering now because of that rising cost of fuel.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would certainly say that the hon. member raised the fact that there was a price jump in British Columbia in the Lower Mainland by 25¢. That was because of a shortage of ethanol, as more governments start to pull in and draw on that limited resource for ethanol requirements.

British Columbia is also short 90,000 barrels a day. That, structurally, makes us more dependent on the Americans. That means that we are sending them our product, and they are processing it and then sending it back. Our dollar has gone down quite tremendously.

Look, the NDP keep talking about adding more taxes and how that is going to fix everything. One of the reasons we do not have a proper system right now is due to delays by the NDP government around the Trans Mountain pipeline and the opposition of that member to any new infrastructure, which means the Americans are getting richer and we are taking a limited resource and not getting the full value for it.

The member has a lot to say but, unfortunately, it is in the wrong direction for Canada.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it truly is an honour to speak in support of our opposition day motion for the Liberals not to increase the carbon tax.

I want to read a couple of quotes from agriculture producers I met with this summer, including a farmer in Ontario who told me the only threat to the success of his family farm is Liberal government policy. A Saskatchewan farmer said, “When it comes to farming, I feel like I'm digging my own grave to follow my dream.”

In fact, a recent survey showed that the biggest stressor for Canadian farm families is not commodity prices and it is not weather. It is government policy and regulation. I would say, for the first time, Canadian farmers see their government as an adversary, not an ally. This is having a huge impact on the financial and mental health of our Canadian farmers.

According to a survey on farmer mental health by the University of Guelph, 75% of farmers have mid to high stress levels and farmers are four times more likely to commit suicide than any other part of the general population. This is the kind of stress and anxiety that our Canadian farm families are facing, and their number one stressor is the policies and regulations imposed on them by the Liberal government.

I will take a moment to look at a couple of them before I get in depth on the carbon tax. Last November, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change announced there would be a fertilizer emissions reduction of 30%, with no consultation and no idea exactly what that would mean. However, now it is putting further pressure on Canadian farm families regarding what they are going to do to make themselves economically viable as the government takes away some of the most important tools they have.

Why is the government not looking at our hard-working Canadian farm families, our innovators, our agri-food businesses and our researchers as a critical part of the climate change solution? It is almost looking at them with disdain, instead of looking at them as part of the solution. For example, in 1981, the average farmer was getting about 27 bushels to the acre. Now they are getting more than 50, but the kicker is that they are doing that on less than half of the acreage, significantly reducing their carbon footprint. Do they get any credit for that whatsoever? No, they do not. On average, we are 50% more efficient in fertilizer use than any other country on the face of the earth. Do Canadian farmers get any credit for that? No, they do not.

Instead, when it came to this fertilizer emissions reduction policy, here is the narrative the Liberal government should have had. When the European Union started making massive cuts to fertilizer use in livestock production, that was its decision, but the Liberal government should have said, if there is an issue in the European Union, why not look at what we are doing here in Canada? Why not look at our innovators, our farmers, our experience, our technology, practices like precision farming, variable rates, 4R nutrient stewardship and show Canadians just how impressive Canadian agriculture is? Instead, its fallback every single time is to look at Canadian farmers, much like it does our energy workers, as the enemy rather than part of the solution.

According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, even if the carbon tax is increased to $170 a tonne, does anyone know what the impact on emissions from agriculture is? It is zero. The reason is that there are no other options. Farmers right now, many of them use combines and they cannot fuel them with anything other than diesel. As one of my Liberal colleagues told me a few months ago, they cannot put a solar panel on top of those machines. They run 24-7. They do not have any other options. This is what they do to ensure that they can not only feed Canadians but feed the world.

Now I would like to focus on the carbon tax specifically. We heard it again today in question period. In answer to a question from one of my colleagues, the parliamentary secretary said that farmers are exempt from the carbon tax on all farm fuels. That is patently not true. Some fuels are exempt, but fuels like natural gas and propane are still subject to the carbon tax. The Liberals are either misleading Canadian farmers or they really do not understand their own policy. The parliamentary secretary said in committee that, even talking to farmers in his riding, and he talked about it again in question period today, we have Bill C-8. We have a farm carbon tax rebate.

The message from the Liberals is always that the carbon tax is revenue neutral. We now know from Ontario grain farmers, from the Department of Finance and from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture that this is also not true. Farmers are getting less than 30% and in some cases less than 15% of what they are paying in carbon tax, through that rebate from the Liberal government.

In fact, the Department of Finance said that the average farmer was getting $800 a year through the carbon tax rebate. I have seen the carbon tax bills from some of my farmers, especially large poultry operations, large dairy operations and certainly our grain growers here in Ontario, who are drying grain or heating barns. Their carbon tax bills are in the thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars a month.

When we hear the finance department say that it is revenue neutral because the farmers are getting $800 a month, that is a slap in the face to Canadian producers who are certainly carrying the burden of the carbon tax. It has basically become wealth distribution on the back of Canadian agriculture. When a Canadian farmer is getting between 13% and, on a good day, up to maybe 30% for their carbon tax rebate, members can see why, as the opposition in the Conservative Party, we are so adamant that we cannot see this carbon tax continue to rise and triple to $170 per tonne.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business also ratified and confirmed the numbers from the Grain Farmers of Ontario, saying that, in the first year, the average farmer paid about $14,000 in carbon tax. After it went up this previous April 1, the average farmer is now paying $45,000 in carbon taxes. My math is not always the greatest, but between $45,000 and $800 there is a big gap, which certainly shows that the carbon tax is not revenue neutral.

The frustrating thing is that the finance department know it and the Minister of Agriculture knows it, and the Liberals continue to allow this to happen. The Minister of Agriculture is complicit in seeing Canadian farmers being taxed to death. They are going to be losing their businesses.

We have put forward two private members' bills: one in the previous Parliament and one in this Parliament. The one in this Parliament is Bill C-234, which would exempt the carbon tax from all farm fuels. I am very happy to say that we have the support of all the opposition parties, which include the Conservatives, the Bloc, the New Democrats and the Greens. The holdout is the Liberal Party, the government, which still does not see that this was an error. The carbon tax should be exempt on all farm fuels and not just a couple. This is imperative to the financial success of Canadian farmers.

Farmers are the ones who are paying the carbon tax over and over again. When buying fuel, buying feed, buying fertilizer, transporting grain and transporting cattle, they are paying the carbon tax every single time. Here is the kicker: Many Canadian consumers see this as an agriculture problem and a rural issue, but farmers have nowhere to pass those costs on to. The result of that is seeing food prices go up more than 10%, which is the highest rate of inflation on food in more than 40 years. This impacts every single Canadian in every single corner of the country, as many Canadians are unable to put food on the table.

By tripling the carbon tax, which we are asking the Liberals not to do in a time of record inflation, they are demanding Canadians to pay more to fuel their out-of-control spending. They are demanding seniors to pay more. They are demanding that youth pay more. They are demanding single mothers to pay more. They are demanding our small business owners to pay more. They are certainly demanding our Canadian farmers to pay more. It is nonsensical, especially in a time of global food insecurity, when we need our Canadian agriculture to be firing on all cylinders to meet the demand that we are going to see, not only here at home but also around the world.

Therefore, I am asking my colleagues from all parts of the House to support our opposition day motion to ensure the financial and mental health of our Canadian farmers first and foremost because they are part of the solution. They are not the problem.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if this opposition day motion is just a sneaky way to put in place the Conservatives' carbon tax plan. Earlier, my colleague referred to the 2021 Conservative platform, which spoke about the carbon tax that the Conservatives, had they been elected, would have implemented.

I am curious as to whether the hon. member spoke to farmers and if he got feedback on the fact that the Conservatives were going to implement a carbon price, but instead of cash in their pockets, people could redeem it for a bicycle or a transit pass. I am curious as to whether the member opposite spoke to farmers and his constituents and asked if they would prefer a bicycle, some Air Miles points or a transit pass, instead of cash in their pockets, like our plan has.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I speak to farmers every single day. I am not sure if my colleague can say the same, but here is where the Liberals are so out of touch. We have the Liberal Minister of Agriculture saying farmers are in support of a carbon tax. We have the previous Liberal minister of agriculture saying farmers are in support of a carbon tax.

However, I can tell members that I have not talked to a single farmer, ranch family, agri-food producer or processor in Canada who supports the Liberals' carbon tax plan. This puts them out of business. This puts Canadian food security at risk, and this is why we are bringing our opposition day motion. The least the Liberals could do would be to support our PMB, Bill C-234, to exempt all farm fuels from the carbon tax.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

As I said earlier today, this feels like déjà vu since we are once again discussing the price on pollution and the carbon tax. It seems like every time the Conservatives run out of things to talk about, they bring up this old chestnut. It seems that the page—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Order. I cannot hear a thing. I ask that the member repeat his question.

The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite‑Patrie.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I feel like we have gone back 10 years. The Conservatives are still talking about the price on pollution and the carbon tax. They cannot seem to get over it. Every time they run out of things to talk about, they come back to this debate that was supposed to be settled.

To anyone who takes climate change seriously, this measure is one of the rare tools that the federal government has that works. The Liberal government does not do enough, but at least we have this measure. Without it there is nothing left. We will keep increasing our greenhouse gas emissions and that will be dangerous for future generations.

To combat inflation, the NDP has offered other proposals that are much more tangible and help the less fortunate.

What does my colleague think of that?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would have to question the premise of his question that this is one of the tools the government has that is working. It is obviously not working. Emissions under the government have gone up every single year, despite it increasing the carbon tax, so I am not sure what data he is looking at that says the Liberal carbon tax, which is supported by the NDP coalition government here, is working.

I think it just shows how out of touch the NDP is, that it does not understand the impact this is having on Canadians. Certainly, he must be going back to his riding and talking to his own constituents who cannot afford to put food on the table, cannot afford to fuel their vehicles and are now wondering how they are going to heat their homes, but he wants to double down on a failed policy, when Conservatives are looking at constructive ideas such as technology over taxation.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much my hon. friend from Foothills correctly stating Green policy, because we do support Bill C-234. We think that what happened here was that the government's intention was to not put a carbon tax on farm fuels, and then we had that extremely flukey weather situation. We had farmers with wet grains, and they had to spend a lot more money than usual to dry the grain. To catch the additional costs of that fuel should have been covered in exemptions, so we completely support the member.

One quick point as well is that Green policy is to ban the importation of all foreign oil. That has been our policy for many years, and the hon. leader of the official opposition mis-stated it earlier today.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague, and if she keeps talking like this, she may as well cross the floor and join the Conservative Party.

In all seriousness, I do want to thank her for supporting Bill C-234. I agree with her. I do believe that is how this came about. However, it was not flukey weather, it was winter, and our farmers face winter every single year. When temperatures are low during calving season, we are heating barns to bring calves in. I know our farmers across the country are having to dry grain most years, and that is an increased cost they are going to be facing, which again puts their financial health at risk.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Taxation; the hon. member for Spadina—Fort York, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship; the hon. member for Regina—Lewvan, Agriculture and Agri-Food.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by stating the obvious: Inflation is a real, serious problem. That is the first thing. Some people are even talking about a recession. The Premier of Quebec, Mr. Legault, estimates that we have a fifty-fifty chance of ending up in a recession. Back when he was a separatist, that very same François Legault said that if a slowdown or a recession were to happen, Quebec would be entirely dependent on Canadian federalism.

He was quite right, but I want to get back to the topic of inflation. In July, the price of goods and services in Canada rose 7.6% from a year earlier. In August, the consumer price index rose 7% year-over-year. Inflation slowed down a bit, but that was only because the cost of gas went down in August. I remind members that gas prices skyrocketed at the beginning of the summer. In August those prices dropped a little, as we recall. That is the only reason why inflation slowed down a bit.

Turning to the cost of food, the situation is serious. Food prices have increased by more than 10% annually, which disproportionately affects low-income households for an obvious reason. These households cannot just simply decide to cut other expenses to offset their higher grocery bills. That is very serious. It seems to me that any discussion about inflation should include a discussion about fighting poverty.

According to a recent poll, 56% of households report that they are financially unable to keep up with inflation. It is 41% for Quebec. Up to 80% of Canadian households and 70% of Quebec households report that they have had to cut spending because of the higher cost of living. Therefore, the situation is extremely serious.

I see that there is some movement behind me. It is not the subject matter that is making me laugh, but quite simply the indecisiveness of my colleagues behind me.

On September 7, the bank raised its key rate for the fifth time. It is now at 3.25%.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, I have some terrible colleagues who have no sense of solidarity.

For consumers, this new increase in the key rate will lead to higher interest and mortgage rates—