Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House to speak on behalf of the good people of Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry. I am also proud to be sharing my time today with the great new member we have in our caucus, the member for Edmonton Northwest.
As the official opposition, our role is to hold the Liberals to account on what they promise and what they deliver, and we have, in many cases, with the new Prime Minister but same old Liberal government. They talk a big game. They have these photo ops and make flashy announcements, but the follow-up leaves something to be desired.
The Prime Minister said, when he was sworn in with the cabinet, that he wanted to be judged by the prices Canadians pay at the grocery store. I am happy to do that, but unfortunately, it is not the best of news when it comes to the situation we face in my part of eastern Ontario in the city of Cornwall with the Agapè Centre.
The Agapè Centre has Lisa Duprau, her staff and the many volunteers who make the place what it is. It is an incredible organization that runs a food bank, a store and a kitchen and helps thousands of local residents each year. It held its AGM last month, and I wanted to advise the House of some pretty alarming statistics when it comes to affordability and the state of our economy here in Canada, and specifically in the microcosm of Cornwall.
There were 40,000 visits made to the Agapè food bank in Cornwall last year. That is a city of 47,000 people. Visits were up 193% in the last four years, and children using the food bank is up 257%. Between the kitchen and the food bank, the Agapè Centre processed a million pounds of food for those in need, with a value of $3.6 million. It is affected by the increased usage and increased cost of food because that is a 10% increase from the previous year.
I want to quote the executive director, Lisa Duprau, who said, “The urgency of the situation cannot be overstated. People are skipping meals, taking on unsustainable debt, and stepping further away from a life of dignity.” That is the record of the Liberal government over the course of the last 10 years. When we look at the last six months with the Prime Minister, the situation is only getting worse. Food inflation is 70% above where the target inflation rate should be, and Canadians are going to be spending an extra $800 on groceries as a family this year. That is the expected average, with no relief in sight.
One of the things we know and have been saying for years, which continues to be shown with higher food inflation, higher housing prices and higher deficits, is that those higher deficits and money printing lead to inflation and lead to that pressure. It is not sustainable, what we have seen for the last number of years under the Liberals, and we are seeing that live in living colour through the sad reality of one food bank in Cornwall alone.
A key part of any government in order to be successful, to grow the economy and to have a sustainable future is getting investment in this country. From what we have seen, the numbers speak for themselves. Since the Prime Minister came into office, we have seen $54 billion in investment leave this country for the United States. Over the course of the last five years, that number has been half a trillion dollars. Why?
It is the lack of good management from the Liberals to create an economic environment through good taxes, good opportunities for jobs, and an atmosphere so that businesses want to bring direct foreign investment from around the world into Canada. We have seen half a billion dollars leave Canada for the United States because that is where they prefer to do business.
As if that rate continuing for the next five years was not bad enough, this week when the Prime Minister visited Washington, there was another major concession with no deal. He has already conceded on countertariffs and the digital services tax, and then he said in his comments in the Oval Office of the White House that he would pledge, as some sort of deal they are working on, $1 trillion of Canadian investment money to go to the United States in the next five years. That is double the rate we have already lost. That is absolutely ridiculous. It is an absolute betrayal of Canadians and Canadian workers.
What does that mean? That is $1 trillion the Prime Minister put on the table with nothing in return, except for those dollars being used in the United States. Just imagine if those one trillion Canadian dollars were invested in Canada in the next five years instead, but no.
We are going to see a factory either closed in Ontario or, if a brand-new one will be built, it will not be built in Ontario but rather in the state of Michigan or Ohio. With the red tape of regulations, it takes 25 years in many cases to get a permit for a mine in northern Ontario, B.C. or other parts of this country. As opposed to seeing that investment and jobs created in British Columbia, as an example, or northern Ontario, it will be going to West Virginia or Washington. For someone with dollars in Canada, as opposed to opening up a new business in, say, Nova Scotia, they will open up in the state of Maine instead. This will happen at a time when we can least afford it.
As the official opposition, we have a responsibility to hold the government to account. The Prime Minister said that he was going to create new jobs in Canada. Since he became Prime Minister, 86,000 jobs have been lost, including in the city of Cornwall, with Ridgewood Industries closing and 300 jobs gone in our community just in the last couple of months. This is not sustainable, but over and over again, we see the Liberal government repeating the same failed approaches.
We are now seeing the Prime Minister going out and openly advocating and creating deals with the United States, with nothing in return, that are going to see $1 trillion in Canadian investment money leave our country and flow down south.
The Prime Minister knows that very well, because he did that just before he became Prime Minister, when he was the chair of Brookfield. Brookfield is part of that $500 billion of Canadian money I mentioned that moved to the United States in the last five years. The Prime Minister's own company, Brookfield, was one of those. It moved its headquarters to New York City, leading by example in completely the wrong way.
We need to see some fiscal responsibility from the government after 10 years. We thought Justin Trudeau was expensive. The Prime Minister is making him look like a penny-pincher.