Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise this afternoon on behalf of my wonderful neighbours in Oshawa and speak to the recent Liberal budget and Bill C-15, the budget implementation bill.
As a mother of two, a 21-year-old and a 15-year-old, I cannot help but look at the direction of our beloved country with some deep concern. In fact, it is why I decided to run and why I stand here today; it is because I am concerned so much for my children's future and for the next generation.
I hear these same worries from parents in my community every single day. They are raising their children in a Canada that feels less secure, less affordable and less hopeful than the one they grew up in. That truth weighs heavily on families across the country.
Canadians are tired of working harder while falling further behind. They are tired of hearing promises that never turn into results, and they are tired of being told that everything is fine when they are the ones standing at the checkout counter, wondering what they can no longer afford. They are tired of being told to wait, to be patient, to trust a government that has repeatedly shown that it cannot deliver what Canadians need most.
Every week, my neighbours in Oshawa reach out to me and tell me the same thing. They are doing everything right. They budget carefully, shop around, choose generic brands perhaps, and stretch every dollar as far as it will go, but the price of everything continues to rise faster than their paycheques.
Instead of offering relief, the Liberal budget has asked them to keep paying more. Year over year, food costs have increased 3.4% under the Liberals. They had a chance to lower food costs for Canadians by scrapping the industrial carbon tax, a policy that increases the cost of fertilizer, fuel and farm equipment. Instead, of course, they chose to increase it, making food even more expensive and pushing families into hardship. The numbers speak for themselves. Beef is up 16.8%, fresh or frozen chicken up 6%, seafood up 8%, apples up 4%, oranges up 7%, fruit juice up 7%, carrots up 11%, and the list goes on. Even infant formula, something no parent can go without or goes without, is up nearly 6%.
These are not just statistics. They are the quiet sacrifices of families who put back fruit because it no longer fits the weekly budget. These are parents splitting chicken breasts to stretch them across multiple meals. These are seniors choosing between nutritious food and essential medication. These numbers represent real people with real stories, real anxiety and real hardships.
When I speak with young families, they tell me they buy less fruit, less meat and fewer healthy options because they simply cannot afford them anymore. Seniors are telling me that they are skipping meals to stretch their pensions. Parents tell me they go without so their children do not have to. This is not the Canada they grew up in, and it is not the Canada they want to leave to their children and their grandchildren.
Instead of acknowledging these struggles and presenting a real plan to fix them, the government has gone forward with another costly budget that makes life even more expensive. It spends more and delivers less. It ignores the daily reality of Canadians who are already making impossible daily choices.
Affordability is not an abstract policy challenge. It is a crisis in real time. It is a mother standing in the grocery store, putting items back because the total is already too high. It is a senior, sitting in the cold because they are afraid of what their heating bill will look like. It is a young person working two or three jobs, not to get ahead but simply to avoid falling behind.
Despite what I have heard from some older Canadians, I believe that our young people, specifically gen Z, are possibly among the hardest-working of all generations. They simply want good jobs and an affordable life, and they are ready to work hard to do it, but they need the jobs and the job security.
In Oshawa, Simcoe Hall Settlement House recently shared heartbreaking news with me. Families who have never needed help before are now walking into the food bank. Even long-time donors cannot give anymore because they themselves are struggling to get by. One mother said her kids sometimes miss school because she cannot afford to pack a lunch. Imagine a parent having to make that choice in a country as blessed as ours.
These are people this budget was supposed to help, but once again, they have been left behind. After a decade in power, the Liberal government has perfected the art of announcements, yet it has completely abandoned the art of delivering outcomes. The Liberals talk about priorities, but their priorities are not the priorities of Canadians.
Canadians want lower food prices, they want lower taxes and they want stability and certainty. They want a government that understands the basics and focuses on the essentials. This budget does none of that. Instead of giving parents real relief so they can afford to feed their own families, the Liberals point to a national food program, which may sound helpful on paper but does nothing to fix the affordability crisis. Moms and dads want jobs, and they want the ability to feed their own children. They do not want to have to rely on a national food program.
It does not get better than this: Of all the taxes the government could have reduced or eliminated in this budget, it chose to eliminate the luxury tax on yachts and private jets. I guess this is for the Liberals' elitist friends. Instead, the luxury tax remains only on vehicles. It might as well be a car tax or a vehicle tax. Some of these vehicles are needed by our farms and our workers. They need their trucks, and these trucks are now in the category of luxury, but they left the tax on that.
The cost of living crisis is not an accident. It is the predictable result of policies that have made everything more expensive. The industrial carbon tax increases the cost—