Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my friend from Richmond—Arthabaska.
I rise today to speak on Bill C-4. Although this bill is inspired by the Conservatives' platform and promises, Bill C-4's collection of half measures does not deal with the real drivers of the affordability crisis: large deficits, high spending, and heavy taxation and regulation. We acknowledge the Liberals for admitting that certain measures are needed after 10 years of Liberal economic mismanagement, which has caused high inflation, doubled housing costs, and high food prices, and, on top of the pandemic pressures, has made life unaffordable for everyday Canadians. However, no matter how we slice it, Bill C-4's impact is too small compared to the previous tax increases, carbon pricing and other failed Liberal economic policies.
When I think about affordability, I think of the residents of Edmonton Northwest who have been hit hardest by Liberal policies that are out of touch with everyday Canadians. For seniors on fixed incomes, who are among the hardest hit by rising grocery, energy and housing costs, Bill C-4 does not provide targeted relief. Seniors are worried about being able to stay in their long-term care facilities or their own homes, or even being able to afford to be active in the community, such as at the Westend Seniors Activity Centre. I also think about the many others who are left out of Bill C-4: low-income, working-age adults who do not earn enough to pay income tax; people who pay large shares of their income on rent; people not old enough for OAS; food-insecure households who need more than hampers; women-led households with multiple children; uncompensated caregivers; people new to Edmonton Northwest; and the list goes on.
Food Banks Canada reports that food bank visits doubled since 2019 to about 2.2 million in March 2025. These are everyday, middle-class Canadians who are now relying on food banks. One in five clients is employed and one in three is a child, with 70% living in market-rent housing. The Liberal government's school lunch program ignores the two-thirds of individuals who rely on food banks who are not children. In their recent report, Food Banks Canada says, “the program does not directly address the structural causes of food insecurity”. Critics also say that this government is out to lunch:
The Carney government says its November budget empowers and invests in Canadians. But it lacks meaningful measures to reduce food insecurity—an important indicator of economic well-being and a strong predictor of poor physical health. It is therefore out of touch with the financial struggles that millions of Canadians face.
Eighty-three per cent of food banks say that “more affordable housing [is] the single most important policy intervention”, which is up from 61% in 2019. Low-income households are now spending about 66% of their disposable income on shelter. Instead of flowing funds to the many urban and indigenous organizations, who have plans and shovels ready to address housing, the government wants to put more money to grow the Ottawa bureaucracy it promised to cut.
Existing renters, especially in big cities, see little in Bill C-4 that addresses their rent increases this year. This is yet another example of elite-banker policies that are disconnected from the realities faced by everyday Canadians. Supply-side housing measures, such as Build Canada Homes and the GST rebate on new rental housing, will take years to see more new homes built. They also do not compare to the stated need for 500,000 homes per year and do not immediately lower rents for current tenants.
In Edmonton Northwest, these measures structurally leave out a growing group of residents who can only afford to rent. Record rents and huge mortgages benefit banks, institutional investors, property management companies and other friends of the Prime Minister. The government has no serious plans to help young people who struggle to build their lives or to restore affordability. While young people are looking to move into affordable starter homes, house-rich but cash-poor seniors are paying ever-increasing property taxes on homes they cannot afford to live in or sell.
Announcing the concept of a plan for housing at Build Canada Homes without money and programs on the ground only delays investments that could be made today in the hope that government will subsidize some of the costs. This is just another example in the government's suite of affordability failures and half measures.
We have heard from stakeholders that the dental care plan requires significant new red tape on the part of dental professionals, who are already in short supply. Being modelled on the non-insured health benefits program for indigenous peoples means that this dental care program will more strongly favour the minority of Canadians who are lucky enough to have practitioners who will spend hours or sometimes days on the phone with the insurer to advocate persistently for the basics of medically necessary treatments for their patients. On the other hand, this will give Canadians a taste of the disastrous bureaucratic inequities that many indigenous people face daily.
We have heard directly from persons with disabilities that the Canada disability benefit and the entire system for enrolling into the federal program is a nightmare for taxpayers and practitioners. The government has built massive paperwork and inconsistent bureaucracies, where somehow we put CRA instead of medical professionals in charge of determining who does or does not have a disability. The Auditor General found that CRA was unreliable even for tax information. Why would vulnerable Canadians trust CRA on medical matters?
Now I will speak to the few positives of Bill C-4. Bill C-4 would finally repeal the consumer-facing carbon tax, after nearly a decade of stumbling around. I am glad the government has finally listened and admitted its cornerstone climate policy failed, but that has not changed its overall spending and regulatory approach. It had the power to fix the carbon tax without a bill years ago, but waited to maximize political benefit over the needs of Canadians. Household goods and services that have the industrial carbon tax baked in are not suddenly going to be less expensive.
Many car-dependent workers and families in Edmonton Northwest will certainly benefit. Tradespeople, delivery drivers, warehouse and logistical workers, health care staff and others commuting by car from the northwest into other parts of the city will feel the immediate gain from lower fuel charges at the pumps brought on by the lobbying efforts of the Conservative Party, but that leaves out the lowest-income Albertans who cannot afford to drive or have no jobs to drive to. Those are some of the people the Liberals exploited to champion the carbon tax years ago with the promise of rebates.
This new automatic tax-filing program will probably increase the take-up of benefits, which matters a lot for very low-income households who currently do not file. We heard from students studying in health fields that couch surfing without a permanent address to file taxes remains a top concern, just as it would be for some of the folks who would gain the most from access to benefits.
Going forward, how can Canadians trust the same Liberal government that saddled current and future generations for the last decade to fix what it has broken? The Prime Minister promised to get tariffs fixed in July, and now Liberals are promising to make life more affordable. This is another promise they are poised to break.