Madam Speaker, at a time when our country is facing historic challenges, Canadians are facing the doubling costs of everything. Food price inflation is at record highs. The cost of rent has doubled. The cost of mortgages has doubled. Even the needed down payment has doubled.
Today, common-sense Conservatives put forward a motion calling for a carbon tax election, declaring that we have lost confidence in the government. That loss of confidence is born out of what we have heard from Canadians, who are struggling. They cannot afford to eat. They cannot afford to buy a home. They cannot afford to rent a home. They can nary afford a tent to live in. Tent encampments are increasing in size in communities across this country. There is desperation from Canadians.
It was not like this before. What has changed? One thing that has changed is that the government has decided to put its friends first and help its friends line their pockets while Canadians are lined up at food banks. There are incredible examples, like the $21 billion that the NDP-Liberal government spent on outside consultants last year, on their buddies at McKinsey and their buddies at GC Strategies with the $60-million arrive scam scandal.
The Liberals are lining the pockets of their friends with wanton disregard for the effects that their inflationary spending is having on Canadians. They like to talk about all of the help they are going to give to Canadians sometime in the future. However, Canadians would not need the scale of rescue that the government proposes if it were not for the injury being caused by that same NDP-Liberal government.
Inflationary spending, corruption and grift are what we have seen after nine years of the NDP-Liberals, and it is Canadians who are paying the price, not just through the cost of servicing the debt that has been racked up, but also with the lack of available funds to take care of what matters most to Canadians. That says nothing of the fact that the Liberals' carbon tax on everything does nothing to help our environment, but drives up the price of absolutely everything. They want to see it raised to over 60¢ a litre. It is a tax on the farmer who grows the food, the trucker who moves it, the grocer who sells it, the food processors and of course the Canadians who buy it.
It is economic vandalism after nine years of these NDP-Liberals, and Canadians need relief. Why will the government not just give Canadians a carbon tax election so they can decide?