Mr. Speaker, I stand today to provide some perspective on the Liberal government's 2025 federal budget and its implementation. I have had the chance to speak with many of my constituents in Bowmanville—Oshawa North, and with Canadians across our country, to gather feedback on the vision for the future of Canada that is expressed by the Liberal government in the budget.
I want to start with one of the signature items in the budget that we have heard Liberal members mention here in the chamber on many occasions as a point of pride. They mention it as a statement of progress, but the reality is that it is a huge red flag for what kind of economy the Liberal Prime Minister is intending to build.
They mention the national school food program and the fact that they are introducing it as a permanent feature of the federal government, as a positive thing. They are even clapping now, showing how out of touch they really are. They say that they want to fund this for years to come, yet the concern that many Canadians have is that they do not want to be dependent on the federal government to feed their children. What they want to see from the federal government are efforts to bring down the cost of food.
It is a fact that parents are having a tougher time affording food. It is a fact that, over the last decade, the cost of food has skyrocketed year to year. It is a fact that keeping up with grocery bills and other bills is a huge source of stress for Canadian families, as food bank lines get longer every month. In this situation, Canadians expect to see the federal government do everything in its power to bring down the cost of groceries.
We saw in the lead-up to the budget that the Liberals were actually quite insincere in promising to work with other parties to solve our country's problems. In the lead-up to the budget, Conservatives provided multiple proposals for how the cost of food could be brought down, including proposals that would remove needless taxes on Canadian agriculture and food packaging, taxes that are passed on to the Canadian consumer at the grocery store. The Liberals did not want to work with us, and they did not want to adopt any of those proposals, which is their right. If they want to be obstructionist, that is a choice that they get to make here every day.
There were other institutions in this country that also offered policy ideas to bring down the cost of food, such as Canada's Competition Bureau, which has been recommending for years that the federal government increase competition in the grocery industry to lower the cost of food. Of course, the Liberal budget did not include any references to that either.
Instead, what did we get? We got a vision for the future of Canada by the Liberal Prime Minister that makes it clear that bringing down the cost of food is not their objective. In fact, what they want to do is normalize the idea that moms and dads cannot afford food for their own children and instead require government assistance in order to do that.
We should all be alarmed by that because, for years and years, decades and decades, throughout our history, the federal government knew that its purpose was to create the conditions for families and communities to thrive, so that parents could buy their own food and provide food to their own children. What we have seen from the federal government is a significant shift in another direction, a shift away from that primary responsibility and instead toward the idea that families and communities need the government's help because the economy is so unaffordable.
This is not what a healthy society is supposed to look like. In a healthy society, families and communities are independent enough from the government that if they do not like what the government is doing, they can very easily tell the government to kick rocks. That is not the vision for Canada that the Liberal Prime Minister articulates in his federal budget. In fact, the logic of the Liberal government was betrayed by the Liberal member for Vancouver Centre, when she criticized Conservatives by saying that we believe that “parents would prefer to feed their kids themselves rather than have the government feed them.”
That is true. We do believe that. We believe that the vast majority of moms and dads across the country feel the exact same way. The vision that the Liberals are articulating is not one of compassion. It is one of dependence. They have sold the national school food program and its permanency as a compassionate and noble idea.
Let us continue to explore this vision for the future of Canada expressed by the Liberal Prime Minister in his budget. He says he wants to be compassionate. I would ask why then in this document, which is hundreds of pages, does the word “addiction” appear once? Why in the midst of an addiction crisis that is harming families all across this country, harming people of all generations and destabilizing our communities would a compassionate government, as the Liberals say they are, pay such little attention to such a crisis?
I would argue it is because the Liberals are frankly not as compassionate as they would like us to believe. In fact, the one time they do mention addiction in their federal budget, they make a point to say that the federal transfers to provinces to deal with this issue will remain the same over the next several years, which means, even though we have a piling amount of evidence that the addiction crisis is getting worse, they actually offer no new money for this.
This has been a very serious issue in my community of Bowmanville—Oshawa North. As I visited young people across this country, it is one of the top issues I heard from students because they all know somebody who has been affected by the addiction crisis. We have seen, since January 2016, over 53,000 opioid toxicity deaths. In the first three months of this year, over 1,300 people died because of opioid overdoses, yet in a budget that shows the vision for this country, the federal government has decided to pay very little attention, offering no new resources and no vision for how we will help our friends and neighbours overcome their challenges. That is not what compassion looks like, so forgive me for calling their bluff when they say they care a lot and are leading with their hearts because, in a budget that increased the federal deficit annually to over $80 billion, they could not spare a single extra penny for this problem.
Let us further explore the Liberals' vision for the future of Canada, because the Liberal Prime Minister also presented his 2025 federal budget as if it is about sovereignty, strength and nation building. That is what the Liberals say, yet we see, snuck into the budget on page 100, a very interesting and, for many people across our country, alarming idea. It states, “The government will also consider options for the privatisation of airports.”
That is critical public infrastructure that a truly sovereign and strong country would take very seriously, yet the Liberal government sneaks in the idea of selling it off to private interests as one line in the budget, hoping that, in the hundreds of pages, people probably will not pay enough attention. They certainly did not mention that when they asked Canadians to vote for them in April.
The Liberal Minister of Transport received a letter from the national president of Unifor expressing concern over this idea, concern I have also heard from many of the unionized workers who I am proud to represent in Bowmanville—Oshawa North. In that letter, the president of Unifor wrote, “Canada's airports are vital economic hubs and public assets. They require public investment and democratic stewardship, not divestment to private interests.”
Once again, the claims by the Liberals that they are concerned with sovereignty and strength are betrayed in the 2025 federal budget. I look forward to seeing the Liberal Minister of Transport respond to that letter and explain to the Canadian people what exactly the government means by considering privatizing critical public infrastructure.
My point remains that, as we explore the vision articulated for the future of our country, it is not what the Liberals have honestly presented. In fact, it is an alarming one, one where affordability is not resolved. Their vision is one where more families are dependent on the government to feed their children. It is a vision where the addiction crisis does not get the attention it deserves. It is a vision where big issues like the privatization of public infrastructure are mentioned as throwaway ideas by a government misrepresenting itself as being concerned with our sovereignty and our strength.
This is why I oppose the federal budget and why we should all be very concerned about its implementation.
