Mr. Speaker, Tina went on to say, “I am being impoverished by the NDP and Liberals. I can call and order MAID as a disabled person before I am deemed worthy of being able to afford to live.”
I rise today in the chamber to declare what millions of Canadians already know to be true: The Liberal government, led by the Prime Minister, has failed our country. The Prime Minister has failed the Canadian people. He has failed to uphold the trust that was placed upon him, not once, not twice, but three times. After nine long years of broken promises, skyrocketing costs, crumbling institutions and countless scandals, it is now crystal clear that the Liberal government no longer commands the confidence of the Canadian people, nor should it command the confidence of the House.
Let us be clear: Our country is broken. This is not just the rhetoric of the opposition; it is a fact evident in the daily lives of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Nine years ago, the Prime Minister promised us “sunny ways”. He promised to uplift the middle class, make life more affordable and restore confidence in government.
However, after almost a decade, what do we have to show for it? We have a country where everything is more expensive, where families struggle to afford the most basic necessities, where crime is surging, where overdoses are claiming thousands of lives, where mental health is at its worst level ever, where hope for the future is dwindling and where overdose is the leading cause of death for youth aged 12 to 18 in my province of British Columbia. That is the record of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister and the Liberal government are to blame for this.
Let us begin by talking about the cost of living, which has spiralled out of control under the Liberal government's watch. Under the Prime Minister's leadership, the dream of home ownership has slipped away from millions of young Canadians. In 2015, the average price of a home in Canada was just under $440,000. Today that price has ballooned to over $750,000, a staggering 66% increase. In cities like Vancouver and Toronto, the numbers are even more horrifying.
How are young families supposed to save for a down payment when prices soar at this rate? Consequently, a staggering two-thirds of young Canadians believe they will never be able to afford a home. Rent has doubled. The needed down payment has doubled. Home prices have doubled.
Not only that, but homeless encampments are springing up all across our country by the hundreds. There are 1,800 homeless encampments in this province alone. In my province, rest areas along the highway are becoming encampments with RVs and trailers because people cannot afford to buy a home and cannot afford to pay rent. That is the stark reality. That is the record under the Prime Minister.
It is not just housing. Let us talk about groceries. Food prices have increased by almost 10% over the past year alone, and 20% of Canadians, two million Canadians, accessed a food bank just last month. That is staggering. The average family of four now spends over $15,000 per year just to put food on the table. What has the Liberal government done? It has dismissed these hardships with platitudes while ordinary Canadians are forced to make impossible decisions between feeding their families and paying their bills. Liberals said that Canadians have never had it so good.
The Prime Minister has printed money like it is his job, recklessly adding more to the national debt than all other prime ministers in the history of our country combined.
The cost of gas has shot through the roof, with prices reaching over $2 per litre in some provinces this year alone. Families are paying more at the pumps. Truckers are paying more to deliver goods.
We know that if they tax the farmer that produces the food and tax the trucker that ships the food, it is Canadians that pay the price for that food. What is the Liberal response to this? They will raise the taxes. They will move to quadruple their carbon tax to 61¢ per litre, punishing hard-working Canadians even further.
Our communities look like war zones. I ask Canadians who are watching this from the gallery today and at home to take a look at their neighbourhoods and their communities. Do they look the way they did nine years ago? No, they do not. Crime is up. Overdoses are up. The failures of the current government go far beyond economics. Under the Prime Minister and his Liberal government, our communities have become less safe. Crime is on the rise in every part of this country. Violent crime has increased by 50% since the Prime Minister took office in 2015.
Violent gun crime is up by 116%. Murders are up 28%. Gang-related murders are up 78%. Sexual assaults are up 75%. Auto theft is up 46%, and extortion is up a whopping 357%. The streets of our cities, once safe and welcoming, now bear the scars of neglect with spikes in gang violence, drug-related crimes and random assaults. The Prime Minister's solution to this is a hug-a-thug, catch-and-release, soft-on-crime, revolving-door justice system that benefits the criminals at the expense of Canadians' safety.
Now I will move on to a topic that is near and dear to me. Since 2016, over 47,000 Canadians have lost their life to overdose. The government has spent over a billion dollars on failed drug policies. When I think about this, I think about Mr. Charles and Mrs. MacDonald, whose daughter Brianna, aged just 13, died in a homeless encampment due to overdose just last month. I think about my own brother, who is on the street, gripped in this crisis. We can perpetuate somebody's addiction but we cannot get them into treatment.
That is the failed record of the Prime Minister. I have spent nine minutes speaking about the Liberals' failed record. I have not even touched on the scandals and the corruption the Prime Minister has brought to the House. We are the laughingstock on the international stage. The Prime Minister wants to be known more for his socks than for the work he does here at home.
The Prime Minister kicked to the curb the first indigenous female Attorney General because she spoke truth to power and would not back his corrupt ways.
I will leave the House with this: We can do better. The time for change is now. We can no longer allow the government to stumble from scandal to scandal, leaving Canadians to pick up the pieces. Taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up, and time is up for the Prime Minister.