Debates of Nov. 6th, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Foothills for his speech. The House has been seized with this issue for almost a month now, and it could end tonight if the Liberals would just produce the documents. What is concerning is the pressing issues that we are not dealing with. For example, my colleague from Foothills knows that the carbon tax issue for my riding of York—Simcoe is that we are not eligible for the rural top-up. We know the government loves to divide and it is dividing Canadians with the carbon tax based on geography. We are also not dealing with Liberal-appointed senators who are interfering with my bill, C-280, financial protection for fresh fruit and vegetable growers right across Canada. I know the member for Winnipeg North knows how important this bill is.

I wonder if my colleague could comment on that.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague and the amazing work that he does in his riding, the soup-and-salad bowl of Canada. He brings up an excellent point. Just this week, I had a conversation with a potato farmer from P.E.I. who was in tears over the Liberals destroying his family farm as a result of the carbon tax and decisions that are making farming that much more difficult. I had a conversation today with another farmer from B.C., who organized an Ugly Potato Day where he had tens of thousands of people line up for hours in the pouring rain just to collect some misshapen potatoes, turnips, carrots and other vegetables because they cannot afford to put food on the table. These are the issues the House of Commons should be dealing with: the fact that we have two million Canadians lining up at a food bank in one month alone, food insecurity is up 111% , and our farmers at their very wits' end because of the carbon tax is making them uncompetitive and unsustainable.

The debate on this motion could end today if the Liberals would just swallow their pride, table the documents and let Canadians make their decision on the level of scandalousness in those documents.

[Ben Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I have a tremendous amount of respect for my colleague across the way, and I know that one of the things he respects, as a former journalist, is the citation of sources. I have listened intently to him reference, as has the Leader of the Opposition during debate in this chamber over the course of the past few weeks, 36% as an increase in food inflation costs in Canada versus the United States.

I am going to be a good educator and cite my source, the OECD, oecd.org, which members can go to. The graph says that not only has food price inflation in Canada decreased from August 2024 to September 2024, whereas it has increased in the United States, but both countries' food inflation rates fall within two percentage points of one another.

My question for my hon. colleague across the way is very simple: Can he cite where he is sourcing the number 36% food inflation from?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, I sure can.

The University of Dalhousie and the “food professor”, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, and other universities did a study that measured food inflation that compared Canada and the United States. They found that for wholesale food prices in Canada, food inflation is 36% higher in Canada than it is in the United States. The member can look at the graph that is there; I would be happy to share it. The one factor making the difference is when the carbon tax increases every April, there is another spike in that difference between Canada and the United States in food inflation. One of the factors is that we have a carbon tax in Canada, and the United States does not.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Winnipeg South Centre for that question to my colleague from Foothills, because he just got a lesson handed to him.

I rise to add my voice to the important discussion we are having to hold the Liberal government to account for its refusal to provide documents in response to a House order. In particular, with this subamendment, we want to ensure that reasonable time is given to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to hear from witnesses and report back to the House. That debate, as we all know, has been a long one. However, the substance of the motion, amendments and subamendments matters because of the crucial issue we are dealing with: accountability in handling public funds, specifically those allocated to Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC, as it is known in the House. It is perhaps better known to Canadians as the Liberal green slush fund.

The aim of this debate, and the reason we must continue our efforts to hold the Liberal government to account, is transparency. It is to obtain files, agreements, conflict of interest declarations and minutes of SDTC's board and project review committee. This is not an unreasonable request. Ensuring that public funds are managed with the highest standards of integrity is the role of all of us in this place.

The Speaker ruled that the Liberals violated a House order to turn over evidence to the police for a criminal investigation into the $400-million Liberal scandal. However, compliance with this order has been far from acceptable. Many government entities either failed to produce the documents required or submitted versions so heavily redacted that they are practically useless. The Liberals' refusal to table these documents has left Parliament paralyzed, hindering our ability to do the work we were elected to do. I will have more to say on that later. For right now, at issue is the question of why the Liberals have refused to comply with the binding House order to produce documents related to SDTC.

We know that the Auditor General conducted a thorough investigation into SDTC's governance after a whistle-blower came forward. She determined that these complaints were rooted in serious issues within SDTC, and her investigation shockingly uncovered, as many of my colleagues have said, nearly 400 million dollars' worth of contracts that were inappropriately awarded by the board of directors, all of whom had multiple conflicts of interest.

The mishandling of SDTC, or the green slush fund, was stark. This program was designed to support innovation in sustainable technologies. Originally established in 2001, it operated with few issues under both Liberal and Conservative governments, that is until the Prime Minister took office.

The Auditor General released a damning report earlier this year revealing that $123 million had been misappropriated by the board of SDTC. The report outlined serious governance failures, including 90 instances where conflict of interest policies were not followed. It allowed $76 million to be spent on projects connected to friends of the Liberals who sat on the board, $59 million to be awarded to projects that were not eligible for funding and $12 million to be spent on projects that were conflicts of interest and were straight up ineligible for the funding. This represents a real betrayal, the betrayal of public trust. It represents a failure of effective oversight. It represents a culture of corruption that has troublingly flourished under the Liberal government.

I, like so many Canadians, am tired of watching the Liberal government drift from scandal to scandal, as just outlined by my colleague from Foothills, wasting millions of taxpayers' dollars along the way. This is not to mention refusing to be completely transparent when the Liberals are finally caught and held to account.

We were reminded of the lack of transparency and forthrightness at the public accounts committee just the other day, when the former Liberal minister overseeing SDTC made little effort to meaningfully answer even the simplest of questions. Throughout his testimony, Navdeep Bains said 16 times that he could not recall, did not know or did not receive details about the activities of SDTC, but he was only the minister in charge. With so little attention given by the minister overseeing the fund, it is almost no wonder that so much mismanagement and so many conflicts of interest have been identified.

Despite what we have heard from some Liberal members, I want to emphasize that pushing for transparency is not an attack on privacy or due process. Instead, it is a call for accountability. Adding the Privacy Commissioner and other key figures as witnesses in this investigation is an important way to ensure a fair and thorough review.

Former minister Bains, choosing to ignore several warnings about her conflicts of interest, proceeded with the appointment of Annette Verschuren as SDTC chair after removing the previous chair. Under the watch of this Liberal appointee, conflicts of interest were tolerated and managed by the board. For example, board members would grant SDTC funding to companies in which they held stock or positions. Former minister Bains appointed five more board members, who engaged in similar behaviour by approving funding to companies in which they held ownership or seats on the board. Meanwhile, officials from the Department of Industry, Science and Economic Development sat on the board as observers and witnessed 96 conflicts of interest but did not intervene.

In January 2021, former minister Bains was replaced by the current minister, and in November 2022, whistle-blowers began raising internal concerns with the Auditor General about the unethical practices of SDTC. In February of last year, the Privy Council was briefed by whistle-blowers and two independent reports were commissioned. Then, later in September 2023, the allegations became public. However, it took the industry minister a month to move to suspend funding to the organization.

An Auditor General investigation followed, and her investigation made it abundantly clear that the failures uncovered by SDTC lie squarely at the feet of the former Liberal minister of industry, who failed to ensure proper oversight or governance. Instead, he turned a blind eye when it was revealed that public money was being funnelled to Liberal insiders, which brings us to today.

The Liberals continue to cover up this scandal by not tabling the requested documents on SDTC. It is notable that the Privacy Commissioner, unlike many other officials, followed the House's direction and produced unredacted documents. This is significant because the Privacy Commissioner understands the balance between transparency and privacy rights better than perhaps any official. He is someone who understands the stakes and the intricacies involved, and he found it reasonable to release unredacted documents. However, we are continually met with the Liberal government's objections to these disclosures, which its members claim could infringe on privacy rights or cause other harms, not to mention the harms they are already causing. If the Privacy Commissioner, the foremost expert on such matters, deems it acceptable to release these documents, it strikes me as fair to question the sincerity of these objections.

Let us return for a moment to the Auditor General's findings, which are very serious and concerning. Her office randomly received a subset of SDTC's contracts and discovered troubling patterns in the majority of them. Her findings indicate that a significant portion of the funds managed by SDTC may have been misallocated through conflicts of interest, mismanagement or perhaps even misconduct. Canadians have a right to know if their tax dollars are being spent appropriately and effectively.

The government's reluctance to provide the full unredacted documents requested by the House should give us all pause. By bringing forward witnesses, including the Privacy Commissioner, the RCMP commissioner and key members of SDTC, we can deliver the further transparency that Canadians deserve.

The fact is that Liberal appointees gave nearly 400 million tax dollars to their own companies, which involved 186 conflicts of interest. That is nearly $400 million being wasted, or stolen, while so many of our fellow Canadians cannot afford the cost of groceries, gas and home heating.

I want to dwell on this point for a moment. The House continues to be paralyzed at a time when Canadians need real results. They need action on measures to improve affordability, whether we are talking about food, fuel or housing, and action on measures to get tough on crime. The NDP-Liberals are trying to create a false choice. They are telling Canadians that they should not be held to account for $400 million of wasted or stolen tax dollars. They are telling Canadians that Parliament can only return to other business by letting these troubling details fall by the wayside. That is the false choice.

Parliament could return to other important business immediately if the Liberal government were to simply provide the documents it has been ordered to provide. It is that simple. It can just end the cover-up and hand over the evidence to the police so Parliament can get back to work for Canadians. The government needs to end the cover-up and let us talk about affordability for Canadian families.

After nine years of the Liberal government, life costs more and work does not pay. The Liberal carbon tax has driven up the cost of everything. Families were left to pay $700 more for food this year than they paid in 2023, forcing them to eat less, skip meals, buy less food or buy less healthy food just to make ends meet. The government needs to end the cover-up and let us discuss what happens when we tax the farmer who makes the food, and the trucker who ships the food, with a carbon tax. Spoiler alert, we end up taxing the Canadians who have to buy the food.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance says that the Liberal carbon tax added $2 billion to trucking costs this year, a number that will rise to $4 billion by 2030. However, these figures only account for long-haul trucking. The total cost to the trucking industry is likely significantly higher, and these higher costs are inevitably passed on to consumers.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

Public Services and Procurement

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, here in the House of Commons, Conservatives have repeatedly made our priorities clear. We stand for the common sense of the common people. We stand for the common good. We defend the interests of everyday, extraordinary Canadians, who work hard and play by the rules. They are people who expect their tax dollars to be treated with respect and who expect a government to uphold the idea of a common citizenship aimed at securing the common good together, rather than elites who try to divide us.

The sad reality is that, for nine years, we have been governed by a radical NDP-Liberal coalition that has sought to advance the interests of well-connected insider elites at the expense of the common people. That is no more evident than in the case of the government's cozy relationship with the elite insider consultants at McKinsey.

I am following up tonight on a question I asked about the government's close relationship with McKinsey and work done by the Auditor General on that. This work revealed that, in about 200 million dollars' worth of contracts, most did not properly follow the rules. The government was clearly making efforts to support McKinsey.

How this came about was that Dominic Barton, who is closely associated with the Prime Minister and people in his inner circle, was given the role of senior economic adviser to the government. In the context of that role, he had access to the Prime Minister to provide advice and so on. At the time, he was the managing partner for McKinsey. At the same time, consultants at McKinsey who were working under him were selling to the government.

Consultants were able to take advantage of this relationship to sell management consulting contracts to the government. That preferential relationship really benefited McKinsey. It allowed McKinsey to do more business under the Liberals, by massive amounts, than it ever had before. From the beginning, the government was serving the interests of well-connected, elite insiders. It has come to do so more over time.

What did Canadians get for these hundreds of millions of dollars that were sent to McKinsey, which the Auditor General said did not follow the rules? We received advice that could and should have been offered from within the public service.

Meanwhile, who are these consultants at McKinsey, the people the Liberals have chosen to be preferred beneficiaries of these advice contracts in government? McKinsey has a sordid record of involvement in scandal all over the world. Most notably, McKinsey advised Purdue Pharma on how to supercharge sales of opioids and, effectively, supercharge the opioid crisis.

This is another example, frankly, of how insider elites were able to cash in at the expense of common people. Many everyday people were prescribed opioids as a result of the false overpromotion of these products by Purdue, which was aided by McKinsey. In fact, they were disproportionately working Canadians; maybe because of physical labour, they were more likely to have workplace-related physical pain. This led to addiction, resulting in so much pain and suffering, which continues today.

The elite insiders at Purdue and at McKinsey were able to cash in, and they are still benefiting from government policy. Purdue produces Dilaudid for government-funded so-called safe supply programs, and McKinsey has benefited greatly from contracts with the government.

Why is the government so bent on supporting McKinsey instead of advancing the interests of the common people? It is a real shame.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan talks about common sense. My mother used to say that common sense is not all that common, and every time I hear him speak, I realize how right my mother was.

Our government takes its responsibility as stewards of the public purse very seriously, and we are committed to making sure that government spending stands up to the highest levels of scrutiny. We welcome and accept the findings and recommendations of the Auditor General with regard to her most recent report on the procurement of professional services. The findings are very much in line with several previous internal and external reviews.

Let me remind the member across the way that independent audits of McKinsey found no evidence of political interference. The joint Treasury Board and Public Services and Procurement Canada review, however, reinforced that there are always opportunities to further improve and strengthen the Government of Canada's procurement practices, and that is exactly what we have done.

PSPC is the federal government's central purchasing agent and is committed to conducting procurements in an open, fair and transparent manner. Of course, the Government of Canada already has solid regulations, procedures and guidelines in place to make sure that happens in every department. However, we are always looking for ways to continuously improve our processes, to make them more rigorous and to ensure decisions and justifications are properly documented along the way.

To that end, PSPC has already instituted several changes. These include introducing a mandatory requirement for all contracting authorities to retain all and any documents related to contractual decisions for professional services. They also include changing how the department administers non-competitive national master standing offers by ensuring justifications are on file and that a challenge function occurs. In addition, the department has created a new position of chief, contract quality assurance and records compliance. This will help to ensure that critical elements of decision-making throughout the procurement process are properly documented, that guidelines and tools are put in place and that quality is being actively monitored. These efforts are consistent with PSPC's commitment to continuously improving government procurement practices more broadly, and I can say that we will keep looking for ways to strengthen the integrity of government procurement.

Regarding the Auditor General's June 2024 report, we accept her recommendation to further strengthen measures to appropriately report and monitor potential conflicts of interest. The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat now has new mandatory procedures that provide an additional check and balance for managers to reinforce their responsibilities and accountabilities when undertaking professional services procurement activities. As a department that has a proactive and rigorous process to identify conflicts of interest in the procurement process, PSPC is supporting the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat in the implementation of its new mandatory procedures.

I want to thank the Auditor General and her team for undertaking this review and for their findings and valuable recommendations. They will help us continue to improve our processes and ultimately strengthen the integrity of federal procurement and professional services. Our government will always do all that is possible to ensure the best value for Canadian taxpayers with all government procurements.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague across the way began by telling us that his mother used to say common sense is not that common anymore. I want to assure the member's mother and all Canadians that we will soon be restoring common-sense leadership in this country. Right now, if we listen to the announcements coming from the government, we would think common sense has gone out of fashion, but after the next election, we will have a government that once again listens to the common sense of the common people.

What we hear from the government to defend the outrageous misuse of taxpayer dollars that we have seen throughout government contracting is that we can always do better or “better is always possible”, as the Prime Minister used to say. The fact is that things have gotten so much worse in the last nine years and better is indeed possible. It is necessary and it is what Canadians are demanding.

Will the member agree that it has been nine years of failure and we need a new common-sense government that will fix these challenges?

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Madam Speaker, since we are determined to talk about family tonight, I will remind the member that his aunt not only lives in my riding but has my sign on her lawn and is a big supporter of mine. She will not agree with anything he just said, just to be perfectly clear, but I will leave that there.

The government takes its responsibility with respect to procurement very seriously. The government takes its responsibility to spend taxpayer dollars responsibly very seriously. The allegation made by the member opposite is utter rhetoric, which comes as no great surprise. I think I am accurate in saying that the member generates more eye-rolling on his own side of the House than he does on this side most days, but I want to thank him for his passion and for bringing this issue to the attention of the House again tonight.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am rising to follow up on an immigration question I had asked the minister just a few weeks ago. I want to quote directly from the immigration levels plan that was tabled. It states on page 8, “Canada is in the midst of a housing crisis – highlighted by the insufficient supply of rental units and family homes. In this context, any population growth, which generally necessitates a corresponding increase in housing supply, puts additional strain on the overall supply and affordability of housing.” It goes on to cite how deep the housing crisis has become over the last few years.

It is an interesting quotation because it is the first time I have heard the government publicly admit that it has created a housing crisis in this country through its own policies. In fact, if we go back to October 2015, the month before the Prime Minister took power, people only needed 39% of the median pre-tax household income to afford the cost of home ownership, to be able to purchase a home. Now it is almost 60%. CMHC reported that housing starts continue to decline and the six-month trend reveals a 1.9% decrease from 246,972 units in August to 243,759 units in September. Housing starts are down 15% year to year.

Why did I talk about housing when I am talking about immigration? It is because two years ago, in a briefing note prepared by IRCC officials to the Minister of Immigration, they warned him that repeat record-high immigration levels in previous target plans would lead to a housing crunch. It would lead to a housing crisis.

I have a simple question for the parliamentary secretary. Why did the immigration minister ignore those warnings from officials in 2022 and why did it take him two full years before he acted to reduce immigration levels from their record highs?

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Madam Speaker, the member's question gives me an opportunity to talk about how our immigration plan is adapting to the needs of our economy and communities.

We are listening to Canadians and taking action, as we have done since we formed government in 2015. For the first time, our levels plan sets targets for temporary residents, which include international students and temporary foreign workers, as well as for permanent residents. This approach to welcoming newcomers will help preserve the integrity of our immigration system while responding to community needs and positioning newcomers for success by having adequate resources to support them.

Immigration is essential for our economy and accounts for nearly all of Canada's labour force growth. Following the pandemic, we brought in temporary measures when we faced a severe labour shortage. The plan worked by helping our economy navigate a challenging period and recover more quickly, and prevented a recession. Our levels plan reaffirms our commitment to reducing temporary residence volumes to 5% of Canada's population by the end of 2026.

While we also reduce our permanent residence target, we will increase our focus on attracting the skilled workers we need to build new homes and provide patient care. We remain committed to reuniting families and are continuing our humanitarian tradition of resettling refugees. These lower targets for both temporary and permanent residents are expected to reduce the housing supply gap by roughly 670,000 units by the end of 2027.

On that side of the House, the leader of the official opposition speaks out of both sides of his mouth. Two years ago, during the pandemic, he said he would “remove gatekeepers to allow faster immigration". Just this year, he went to a community event and said we need to “end the deportations”. He said, “We have a worker shortage in Canada. We have a demographic problem. Our population is too old...[and] we need these workers in our country." A few months later, he went to a different community and said the opposite. He promises different things to different people. Canadians cannot trust a word he says.

On this side of the House, we will always listen to Canadians all across the country. We are aware of the existing challenges and we are acting to address Canada's evolving needs. Our immigration plan will support our economy while responding to the pressures faced by families and communities.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, the Liberal government has destroyed Canada's immigration system. I want to draw the parliamentary secretary's attention to the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, which just completed a survey of 20,000 newcomers and immigrants. It found that one in four newcomers are planning to leave Canada. The likeliest of those newcomers to leave are the economic class immigrants. The top reason for leaving is housing. People cannot find housing in this country, so they are going to leave. The top three urban centres they are going to be leaving are Toronto, Brampton and Vancouver.

Now that Canadians and newcomers are suffering from the Liberal-made housing crisis, what is the government's plan going to be? Can we expect further desperate, chaotic flip-flops?

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for raising this issue, though I do take issue with his tone.

The government is addressing the challenges facing Canadians through our latest immigration levels plan. For the first time, it sets targets for temporary residents, as well as permanent residents. The reality is that the Leader of the Opposition has no plan for the future of Canada, and his made-up math formula on immigration just is not adding up. The only plan he has is to cut, cut and cut.

While the Conservative Party focuses on slogans, Liberals will remain focused on building a stronger, more sustainable immigration system that works for everyone. We are supporting newcomers' immigration and giving them a fair shot in Canada.

Carbon Pricing

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, we know that the cost of living in Canada has never been higher. Life has become unaffordable for far too many Canadians, and this historic cost of living crisis is not by chance. It is a direct result of the NDP-Liberal government's inflationary taxes and reckless spending.

The Liberals' costly and punishing carbon tax is significantly adding to the cost of gas, groceries, home heating and all basic necessities. Their failed carbon tax is pushing Canadians to the brink. The NDP-Liberals are still hell-bent on making things worse for Canadians. The NDP-Liberals' plan to quadruple the carbon tax by 2030 is only going to further drive the cost of everything up.

While the Liberals dive deeper and deeper into the pockets of hard-working Canadians, they have the audacity to stand in this place and tell Canadians over and over again that they are making them richer with the carbon tax. This is simply not true and Canadians know that this is not true. Parents who are skipping meals or who are lined up at food banks know that it is not true. Canadians who are living at unsafe or uncomfortable temperatures to save on energy costs know that it is not true. Seniors who are reportedly going without medicine to keep their heat on certainly know that it is not true.

No matter how many times the NDP-Liberals tell Canadians they are putting more money in their pockets, Canadians know the realities of the bills that they are facing. The NDP-Liberals may want to turn a blind eye to the suffering they are causing Canadians, but the numbers will not let them. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has once again confirmed that the NDP-Liberal carbon tax is impoverishing Canadians. The PBO's latest report on the carbon tax proves this and it proves it using the NDP-Liberals' own numbers.

Of course, we all recall that these were the numbers that they desperately tried to hide. The NDP-Liberals literally tried to silence the Parliamentary Budget Officer from exposing the truth about the impact of their carbon tax with a gag order. That is the length the Prime Minister is willing to go to in his effort to hide the fact that his carbon tax is nothing more than an expensive scam.

Despite what the NDP-Liberal government members say, the indisputable truth is that the carbon tax is making most Canadians poorer. The PBO has confirmed that Canadians will suffer a net cost, and that Canadians are paying more in the carbon tax than they will ever get back in rebates. In Saskatchewan, that is about $894 more for the average person.

It is absolutely shameful that Canadian families who are already struggling to make ends meet are facing additional financial pressures because of the costly coalition. In the midst of an ongoing affordability crisis, the NDP-Liberals hiked their carbon tax by 23% last spring, and they remain hell-bent on quadrupling it. Canadians are desperate for some relief.

The reality is Canadians need help now. The Liberals and their NDP partners just do not get it. Conservatives would restore the Canadian promise that hard work is rewarded so that families do not have to decide between keeping a roof over their heads or putting food on the table. It is time for a carbon tax election so that common-sense Conservatives can offer Canadians some much-needed relief.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity]

Madam Speaker, it is nice to be here in adjournment debate. I would like to thank my friend and colleague from the Conservative Party, with whom I have co-hosted events here on the Hill. I would like to thank her for her work for parents, and I enjoy the opportunity to talk about poverty elimination measures because it is a policy topic I am interested in personally.

I am going to focus my responses through two poverty elimination experts, economists from my colleague's province of Saskatchewan. The first is Brett Dolter, who is an assistant professor in the department of economics at the University of Regina. He said, in a recent article:

Even if you overlook the modelling omissions in the PBO report, their results still actually show that the 20 per cent of households with the lowest incomes get an average of $720 extra back...and the next 20 per cent of households still get $412 extra back....

What he is trying to indicate is that rebates are higher than the carbon tax for all poor folks in Saskatchewan. People on a lower income receive a lot more back through the Canada carbon rebate than they pay, and that is well documented in Saskatchewan by people who are working with folks who visit food banks. Another well-known Saskatchewan-based economics professor said that the misleading information has led to the belief that most Saskatchewan residents pay more, which is false.

In addition to the article I mentioned, I read an anecdote from Alan Holman, a man from Saskatoon who is on disability assistance. He says that without the Canada carbon rebate, he would have to scale back on spending for his everyday needs. He says that the Canada carbon rebate that he receives four times a year from the federal government is crucial for his household budget.

Also from Regina is Peter Gilmer, who is an advocate with the Anti-Poverty Ministry in Regina. He says that people on low income rely on the rebates to pay for the essentials. He also says, “For the vast majority of low-income people, whether they’re on income security programs or earn low wages, they’re actually better off in terms of the bottom line when receiving the rebate and paying [the carbon levy].”

Time and time again, members from the Conservative Party stand up in the House and talk about the hunger report from Food Banks Canada. The aforementioned event that my colleague and I have co-hosted here on the Hill was with Food Banks Canada. She will recall that every year, when representatives of Food Banks Canada come, they make four recommendations.

In its 108-page report this year, Food Banks Canada did not mention carbon pricing, because it knows there is no tax on groceries. Conservative members continually stand in the House to mislead Canadians to suggest that carbon pricing applies to food, but it simply does not. The Food Banks Canada hunger report would have indicated that.

If it were simply a case of removing the carbon price from food, that would be a simple fix, but there is not a carbon price on food, and actually the leading driver of higher food costs in Canada is climate change itself. If we bury our heads in the sand and pretend that climate change does not exist and is not impacting our daily lives, and if we just say it is somebody else's problem because we are a smaller country by population so other people ought to fix it first, well, I will say that in Canada I know that we all believe we are leaders.

I will finish by stating the four recommendations that Food Banks Canada has made to the federal government and to all governments across Canada: first, rebuilding Canada's social safety net; second, solving the affordability crisis; third, helping workers with low incomes make ends meet; and fourth, addressing northern and remote food insecurity and poverty.

There are policy recommendations on all four, addressing the key issues. We have been rebuilding Canada's social safety net. One of the ways is through dental care. I just ask the member opposite, if she is going to quote Food Banks Canada, to please rely on the insight and the perspective it has shared, not on the Conservatives' own political rhetoric.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, we know that the NDP-Liberal carbon tax is an expensive scam. Saskatchewanians are not receiving back more than they pay into it. We know that the Liberals have failed to meet every single one of their own environmental targets, but what they have unfortunately succeeded in doing is impoverishing Canadians.

The member on the other side says that food is not taxed, but he obviously does not understand how the supply chain works, especially when food is going into rural and remote communities. For anything that needs to be shipped by train, truck or car, there is a carbon tax on the fuel that is used for that. It is simply untrue to say that food is not taxed, let alone all other goods and services. When we are going to the grocery store, we are paying GST on diapers, for example.

I would just suggest that the member look at the facts. Carbon tax is on the whole of the supply chain, from the seed to the store.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to go back to Saskatchewan resident and poverty elimination expert Mr. Gilmer, and I will again read from this article because I think it is quite informing. If the member opposite does not want to listen to Food Banks Canada, perhaps she could listen to food bank workers and poverty elimination experts from her riding, or at least from Regina.

In this case, an advocate says that politicians are disregarding the impact that the Canada carbon rebate has on household finances, particularly for lower income families. They are being “reckless and irresponsible”. The article repeats that “the law to impose a carbon levy [to reduce carbon emissions] was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada” and describes Mr. Gilmer as saying, “when governments get into squabbles, it's usually those with low incomes who take the brunt.”

As we have seen time and time again, the Conservatives are using lower income Canadians as a prop. They are suggesting that policies that are designed to lower our emissions are hurting lower income Canadians, when they are not. Mr. Gilmer said, “We need to make sure the rebate is in place.” I could not agree more with that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 7:09 p.m.)