Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to rise in the House not long ago to ask the government what it was doing about what has very clearly become a crisis that has made it so that Canadians cannot afford food.
We know that food bank usage across the country is experiencing record highs. Food banks all over have huge demands, including in my riding, where the St. Thomas Elgin Food Bank will have to feed 30,000 mouths this year. This is the third straight year of record increases. I asked the government about this, and I am going to quote directly from the Secretary of State for Labour, who responded. He said, “We are going to be building. We are building homes and building projects in the national interest, with Canadian lumber, Canadian steel and Canadian unionized workers.”
I am not sure what the affordability plan for groceries is, but I do not believe Canadians are going to be eating Canadian lumber. I do not believe Canadians are going to be eating Canadian steel. I certainly hope they are not going to be eating Canadian unionized workers.
The government, in its response, did not even address groceries or food costs, and I understand why. I know full well why the government is not interested in talking about grocery prices, because it would have to acknowledge what has happened to them on the Liberal government's watch.
We know that food bank usage is up 142% since 2015. We know that grocery store food prices have risen by a staggering 40% since the Liberals took power. Now there is a report from Food Banks Canada showing that hunger is being “normalized”, which is a word from the experts. Now food bank usage for Canadian families has not become something that is an extreme situation or just a temporary stopgap; rather, it is part of what life is for them. That is a tragedy; it is a crisis, one that has been aggravated and exacerbated by Liberal government policy.
We do know, contrary to what I am sure the parliamentary secretary is going to say tonight, that there are a number of hidden taxes on food costs in this country, including the industrial carbon tax, which actually taxes the producers of food, which then trickles downstream to consumers; and regulations on plastics and packaging, which make it more expensive for producers and packagers of food, and then that gets passed along to consumers. These are hidden taxes on groceries that, along with other inflationary pressures, are driving up for Canadians the cost of buying groceries.
I have heard from constituents who have had to make difficult choices from week to week about whether they fill up their car so they can get to work or whether they buy groceries. We know that people are skipping meals because they cannot afford the grocery store hauls they used to. Is this the new normal? Is this what Canadians are going to be forced to contend with?
We have not seen from the government anything resembling a plan. In fact, when we talk about very real, very demonstrable driving factors that push up the cost of food, the Liberals try to gaslight Canadians and say they do not exist. They try to say there are no clean fuel standards that make it more costly to move goods around. They are saying there are no costs to the packaging requirements. The government is gaslighting Canadians, and in doing so, it is ignoring that it has access to mechanisms and solutions that we are happy to give them and that would make life more affordable for Canadians and reduce prices at the grocery store.
My question for the government is very simple: Will the Liberals stop their gaslighting and get serious about reducing costs for Canadians at the grocery store?