Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the hard-working families, farmers and forgotten rural communities of Bow River in southern Alberta to speak against a budget that will make life more expensive for every single Canadian. The government has delivered a spending plan that will drive up the cost of food, drive up the cost of housing, drive up the cost of energy and dig this country deeper and deeper into debt than at any time in our history, and for what? It would be for more bureaucracy, more waste, more costly programs that fail the people the Liberals claim to help, and yet another round of broken promises from the Prime Minister and his finance minister.
Let us start with the basics. The finance minister promised Canadians a $62-billion deficit, but instead the deficit is now $78 billion. I remember a time when a $3-billion, $4-billion or $5-billion deficit was dramatic and worthy of bringing the government down. Now it is almost as if money means nothing anymore.
The finance minister promised to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio. He promised to rein in government spending, but instead he is spending $90 billion more, an equivalent of $5,400 in new inflationary spending for every household in the country. He promised to work with municipalities to cut homebuilding taxes in half and to get more homes built, but the budget breaks that promise too, making housing more expensive and more unattainable for young Canadians. He promised stronger investment, yet the budget reveals that business investment is collapsing. These are not small misunderstandings; they are broken commitments that have real consequences for real families.
On the subject of consequences, economic consequences, nothing is more destructive to jobs and investment than the government's looming oil and gas emissions cap. Further illustrating the disconnect between the government's projections and reality, ECCC's own modelling assumed that the cap would reduce production by only 0.7%. How do we become a global energy superpower by reducing production by 0.7%? That is the first fallacy.
However, as Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot confirmed to the environment committee, the modelling was already flawed. It relied on overly optimistic scenarios from the Canadian energy regulator and the International Energy Agency that have not matched actual market trend. In reality, the independent estimates from The Conference Board of Canada and Deloitte suggest production could fall by as much as 11%, a figure that aligns much more closely with observed trends.
Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer's 5.4% projection appears conservative in light of the current data. The Parliamentary Budget Officer also reported that the emissions cap would cost over 40,000 jobs and shrink nominal GDP by $20.5 billion U.S. by 2032.
This is a stark discrepancy, and it indicates the government is downplaying the true economic impact of its own policy. It is putting Canadian energy investment at risk, it is putting jobs at risk and, as Dr. Exner-Pirot warned, the cap acts as a production cap in disguise, driving capital out of the country and sending good-paying Canadian jobs to jurisdictions with weaker environmental standards.
The budget hints at delays, and it softens the language, but it does not go nearly far enough. If Canadians want Canada to be an energy superpower, and if we want to attract capital instead of driving it away, the emissions cap must be taken off the table. Only then can we restore investor confidence, protect thousands of jobs and unleash the full potential of Canadian energy.
One of the most shocking features of the Prime Minister's budget is that just the interest on the national debt will reach $55.6 billion next year. That is a hard number to let sink in. This means that we would spend more just to service the debt than we spend on the entire Canada health transfer. It is more than the entire GST revenue; the equivalent is that every single dollar collected through GST would now go straight to a banker or a bondholder rather than to a doctor, a nurse or patient care. That would be the true cost of the government's reckless spending.
Einstein once talked about the magic of compound interest, but the current government is showing us the magic of compound spending. Under the Prime Minister, the federal debt has soared to $1.35 trillion, and the budget adds another $321 billion over the next five years, more than double what the previous government would have added over the same period. Canadians are paying for runaway debt. Taking five dollars out of a taxpayer's pocket and giving two dollars back as a handout is a broken proposition, and it devalues the contract a government has with the people.
The budget also fails Canadian farmers and rural communities. Major farm organizations have been clear in their criticism. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture stated that while the government included some measures, the budget is “a missed opportunity to address some of our sector's most pressing challenges such as a permanently increased interest free threshold for the Advance Payments Program, [dealing with] labour disruptions in the food supply chain, [and] protecting farmland”.
Modernizing the Canada Grain Act should also be a priority. Grain Growers of Canada warned that “without extended interswitching, farmers lose a competitive tool that [keeps] costs in check and performance accountable” in terms of grain and commodity transport.
The Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada called the budget a failure on food security, stating bluntly that “this budget fails to deliver on the government's earlier promises” and that it falls short on all counts.
Moreover, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency modernization measures do not go far enough. For too long, the agency has shifted responsibility between itself and Health Canada and Agriculture Canada, depending on where the pressure was coming from to perform, and it has left farmers without accountability or timely action. Without structural reform, the CFIA will continue to hide behind bureaucracy rather than provide the certainty and transparency farmers need in order to operate efficiently and safely. Canadian farmers, the ag industry and the public demand it. The incremental digital upgrades planned cannot fix the systemic issue.
The government's approach leaves Canadian farmers exposed to higher costs, excessive regulation and competitive disadvantage. Until the industrial carbon tax is removed, bureaucratic barriers are reduced and the CFIA is truly reformed to act decisively on agriculture issues, this budget will continue to fail rural Canadians.
Nowhere is the impact of the budget more painfully felt than at the grocery store. Canadians are already facing one of the worst affordability crises in living memory, and the budget only makes it worse. Food inflation came in at 70% higher than the Bank of Canada's target. Families are spending $800 dollars more this year than they did last year, just to feed themselves. The prices of basic necessities such as meat, coffee and baby formula are all skyrocketing. Beef is up more than 12%; processed meat, more than 5%; coffee, more than 27%; infant formula, 6.6%; and soup, 5.3%.
These are not luxuries; these are staples. When the cost of basic staples goes up, everything else in life becomes harder for working families. While the government finds new ways to tax food at the checkout counter, it continues taxing food at the farm gate as well.
Rural communities know the reality: The government's refusal to scrap the industrial carbon tax on fertilizer and farm equipment, and its doubling down on it in the budget, is breaking Canadian farmers. Farmers in my riding and across Canada have pleaded with the government to end the carbon tax on growing food. Instead, the budget doubles down. It keeps the carbon tax on barns, irrigation, grain drying, fertilizer production, tractors and combines. When we tax the people who grow the food, we invariably raise the cost of the food they produce.
The consequences are real. These increases hurt rural Canadians, seniors on fixed incomes, single parents, and young families trying to get ahead. They are the result of high taxes, high deficits and high regulation from a government that refuses to listen.
Conservatives believe in a simple principle: If we want to make life affordable, we cut taxes, cut waste, build homes, unleash industry and remove the bureaucratic barriers that hold Canadians back. Instead the Prime Minister and his finance minister are choosing the opposite path: bigger government, higher taxes, more regulation, higher deficits and more debt, and Canadians are paying the price.
Canadians deserve a government focused on lowering costs, not on raising them. They deserve a government that believes in farmers, families and workers, not in big bureaucracies and high taxes. They deserve a government that respects the value of a dollar and the dignity of work.
Conservatives are ready to deliver.