Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House of Commons and speak on behalf of the people of Peterborough—Kawartha.
It is an even bigger responsibility as the critic, or shadow minister, for families, children and social development. Without families, without healthy families, without healthy children, we have a serious problem in this country. There is no doubt whatsoever that there are some serious problems in this country.
I will be 45 years old in two weeks, and in my time living here, I have never seen Canada in the state it is in now. I have never seen kids struggle in the way that they are struggling. I have never seen seniors struggle in the way that they are struggling. Every member in the House would know this if they were door knocking, which is part of our job when an election comes, to knock on the doors of people, to listen to them, to hear them, to take the emails and to take the phone calls. I have never seen such genuine misery and fear in my life.
I originally come from a very small community. It is called Douro. Douro is what I always call the foundation of Canada. It has four corners. It has the elementary school. It has the church. It did have a town store, a general store, which was like a mercantile. Sadly, it burned down. The town hall was right beside it on the same corner. It also has a graveyard.
I want to also mention that I will be splitting my time today with the hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South. We are, as they call us, the Peterborough pistols.
The community of Douro really represented what Canada is. It is this community where, when one needs help, one's neighbours show up. There is the community centre where one has the weddings, events, hockey games and soccer games. There are the schools. Everybody knew everybody, and everybody helped everybody. Slowly, the erosion of the country has happened. It is no coincidence that this has happened in the last nine years under the leadership of the Prime Minister.
I want to tell members a surprising stat. This is officially the longest-running minority government without an election in Canadian history, surpassing Lester B. Pearson's government in 1968. Why is that? It is because of the leader of the NDP.
Why is this because of the leader of the NDP? It is because the Prime Minister knew he was tanking, knew that his gaslighting was no longer working. He took Canadians and he spoke about sunny ways, sunny days, and that things would never be better. Canadians caught on, really quickly, when they realized that they could not afford the interest rates, that they could not afford to keep their mortgages and that they could not afford food.
They cannot afford food and are spending $700 extra a year in groceries. Two million Canadians a month are using a food bank, and 33% of those are children.
The Otonabee-South Monaghan Food Cupboard operates in what will soon be my riding, but is now in my colleague's riding of Northumberland—Peterborough South. She came to my office last week and said that they have seen a 100% increase in the usage of food banks. She said that they are not the most vulnerable. These are working families that are doing everything that was asked of them. They go to work, and they cannot afford to feed their kids.
They cannot afford to feed their kids. I think it is deeply upsetting because we have never had people work so hard and feel so hopeless. We have the worst GDP in the G7. People want to say that it is the sign of the times, that it is everything. They want to blame it on everything.
This is about leadership. I often say that politics is very much like parenting. Parenting is a very perfect metaphor for politics. It is one's job as a parent to give one's kids the tools and the knowledge to go and thrive. One should never be on the field with one's child. One should be there to help them. If one does everything for them, what happens? They do not learn how to do it.
Right now, we have a government, and a coalition, because the Prime Minister knew he was going to lose. He knew that everybody was catching on to the misery and chaos he had created, such as increasing crime and victims no longer having rights. Last month we had victims' rights week, and there was not one mention from that side of the House about victims' rights. The government has made sure that criminals have all the rights they need and that they get transferred to medium security without anybody being told. It secretly did that. It transferred Luka Magnotta and did not tell the public. It does not worry about victims or retraumatizing people.
Because the Prime Minister knew he was going to tank, he got the leader of an opposition party to sign a coalition with him, and then continued to gaslight Canadians in the hope that nobody would catch on. Everybody has caught on. Nobody believes anything the Liberals say. They are frustrated and exhausted. People ask me why, every day in question period, they do not answer anything, but just deflect, not answer the questions and pretend everything is perfect.
There is no better example of this than child care. The Liberals' whole marketing program was that child care is great. I visited a local child care facility in my riding last week that is run by an amazing woman. She is single mom who decided to bring kids into her home to care for them and help offer flexibility to the parents who need to work. She said that the cost of food is out of control if one wants to feed kids healthy food. We all know that what we put in our gas tank determines our overall productivity and ability to function. She said that the cost of food is just unbelievable.
I think the most shocking thing for me is that people will write to me and say that they are so embarrassed because they make $100,000 and still cannot pay their mortgage and feed their kids. They are having to cut back on sports. Then their health is compromised. Their mental health is compromised. The health of these kids is compromised.
I spoke to a grade 10 civics class last week. These kids were very sharp. They were in tune. I said that I thought that social media has caused a lot of problems in the world, especially for young people. They were pretty dialed in and knew a lot of things. They said that they did not think they would ever own a home. They do not even know why they go to school. They do not even know what to do. They do not want to stay in their town because there are no jobs and no housing that is affordable. These kids are 15 years old and are burdened with adult problems. They were genuinely concerned.
I think there is a real problem with acknowledging the facts, but here are some real facts to change the course we are on.
If we tax fuel, every single thing goes up. The carbon tax is the demise of an already crushed society that cannot afford to live. It is like punching someone just a little more while they are down. It is wild. If we talk to farmers, especially small business owners who, for the record, are the whole backbone of this country as small businesses make up 98% of this economy, they are being destroyed every single day. When we increase the tax on small businesses, these people, who are not swimming in gobs of money but who are trying to make a living and provide a service to families or themselves, cannot do it. They are shutting down. If we go downtown in any major city in this country, we can see the out-of-business sales and closed restaurants. Why is that? It is because of the Prime Minister, who got into a coalition with that guy for power and control, has doubled down on an ideology that we cannot make our own decisions, that the government knows what is better for us and will do it for us, which is going to cripple us and make it dependent on us. It is baffling and so upsetting because we are here and we are—