Madam Speaker, as I was saying, the member for New Westminster—Burnaby has defended this Prime Minister and the policies that he has put forward, including the billion-dollar green slush fund. This is at a time when Canadians are struggling greatly with affordability. This week alone we learned that, at the billion-dollar green slush fund, $150 million has been misappropriated. Canadians cannot afford the government to be borrowing money to have Liberal insiders then embezzle that cash and have Canadians pay interest on it while these Liberal appointees are off lining their pockets. Those are the policies that are being supported by the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, instead of coming here to advocate for Canadians and speaking to an issue that is as important as competition in our banking sector.
This report from the Standing Committee on Finance could not be discussed at a more germane time for Canadians than right now. Lineups at our food banks have been precipitated by the inflationary spending of this government. Home prices have doubled. A report from rentals.ca says that it costs the same to rent a room in a two-bedroom unit as it was to rent a unit when this government came to power in Canada. This is unacceptable.
We need to consider the real-world impacts for people who are acutely aware and feel these effects in the market as they happen. If we take one of the players out, one of the players offering the lowest rates as would happen with this merger, what happens to those prospective customers? What happens to the rest of the market? Well, the prices are going to go up.
I remember a time when people like the member for New Westminster—Burnaby would have fought for Canadians and not fought for a Prime Minister twice found guilty of breaking ethics laws; a Prime Minister with a cabinet of serial lawbreakers. I remember those times, but they are not the times we are living in now. So desperate is that member to support this Prime Minister that he has turned his back on Canadians, and so Canadians are the ones who are left to pay the price every single month that they can ill afford to.
We can look at the tens of billions of dollars that this NDP-Liberal government has committed to spending on overseas replacement workers taking Canadian jobs. We hear from local unions about the effect that these policies are having in terms of lost wages for their members. We are seeing lost wages and lost jobs and Canadians are seeing their government borrow money to finance it. Who pays the interest on that debt? Well, Canadians do.
This Prime Minister told us that interest rates would stay low for a long time. We will remember that was his famous line when pressed on it. However, interest rates did not stay low. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance said the same. The Governor of the Bank of Canada had said the same. However, Canadians are now getting hammered with rising interest rates, just like they will get hammered with rising interest rates with a bank merger like this. It is unconscionable—