Madam Speaker, we know that Canadians want a budget that makes life more affordable, but the Liberal government has not delivered on that. The Liberal government's long-awaited budget is costly and also irresponsible. It is, in fact, the most expensive budget in our history outside of the pandemic years. It is what some call a “credit card budget”, and it is Canadians, today and tomorrow, who will be footing this bill.
The Prime Minister promised to keep the deficit at $62 billion, and that deficit was already too high. However, the Prime Minister did not even keep that promise. Instead, the budget has a deficit of $78 billion, which is $16 billion more than what was promised and double what former prime minister Justin Trudeau left behind.
The increased deficit in the budget is part of a series of broken promises. The Prime Minister promised to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio, but the debt-to-GDP ratio is going up. The Prime Minister promised his government would spend less, but the Liberals would spend $80 billion more. That equates to $5,400 more in inflationary spending per Canadian household. The Prime Minister promised to help municipalities cut homebuilding taxes in half. Instead, the cost of building homes continues to rise. He also promised more investment, but it is clear that investment is actually collapsing in Canada.
Rising uncertainty, taxes, regulations and debt are all contributing to the loss of investment. Unfortunately, it gets worse. In an attempt to appear fiscally disciplined, the Prime Minister worked out a scheme to split operational spending and capital spending, except not everything the Prime Minister deemed an investment is actually an investment. The independent Parliamentary Budget Officer has confirmed this.
The Liberals cooked the books. They made up their own definition of capital spending, one that according to the PBO is overly expansive and expands well beyond the accepted international practice. When the PBO did the real math, capital investment spending was 30% lower. That is a $94-billion difference. That means the Prime Minister's claim that he will balance operational spending over the next five years is also inaccurate. There is no path to balance operational spending in five years, never mind a path to balance the budget overall.
This matters to Canadians in a very real way. The spending is not abstract. Debt is not free, and it has real consequences. The more the Liberals spend, the more it costs Canadians. Canadians pay for this spending through inflation and through higher taxes. The cost to service Canada's debt is not insignificant. Canada is now paying more to service the national debt than it pays in health care transfers to the provinces. Every dollar used to service the debt is a dollar that cannot go to services that Canadians rely on. It is a dollar that is taken out of the pockets of Canadians and passed on to bankers and bondholders.
The Liberal budget would continue to raise the cost of living for every single Canadian. It would pour fuel on the inflationary fire that the Liberal government has been burning for 10 years. It would make homes more expensive. It would make food more expensive. It would make everything more expensive. Canadians are already facing inflated food prices. Food should be affordable and within reach for every single Canadian. Unfortunately, that is not the reality here in Canada.
Food insecurity is on the rise in record-breaking numbers. Food banks and organizations across the country have been sounding the alarm, but the Liberal government is failing to take food affordability seriously. “Canada's Food Price Report”, published just last week, reported that Canadian families will spend nearly $1,000 more on food next year. It forecast that overall food prices will increase by another 4% to 6%. Those increases are on top of year-over-year increases that have made food unaffordable. Nearly 2.2 million people visited food banks in Canada on a monthly basis this year, and one-quarter of Canadian households are already food insecure. That is 25%.
While the Liberals in this House claim their policies are working, Canadians know they are not. Four out of five Canadians say food is their top expense pressure. Food inflation has outpaced overall inflation for nine straight months. It took decades in Canada to reach one million monthly food bank visits, and under the Liberal government, it took only half a decade to more than double that number. Canadians are turning to food banks more often, more regularly and for longer periods of time. Nearly one in five Canadians visiting a food bank is employed but still cannot make ends meet. One-third of those visiting food banks are children. Parents are skipping meals just to feed their children. Seniors are forced to choose between groceries and their medication. Some parents are watering down baby formula or even buying opened containers wherever they can find it.
This is a clear sign that Canadians are being failed by the Liberal government. These are basic necessities, and for many, they are out of reach. It is no wonder when we look at the prices. Statistics Canada has reported that the cost of baby formula has skyrocketed by nearly 84% since 2017, with a 30% increase in just the last two years. Something is deeply wrong when baby formula is one of the most stolen food items in Canada, yet the Liberal budget would do nothing to make food more affordable. Not a single measure would deal with the root causes of high food prices, and not one serious step would be taken to reduce the cost of producing food in Canada.
Instead, the Liberal government is increasing the cost of food. Its industrial carbon tax would be going up, and this would increase the cost of fertilizer and farm equipment. It would increase the cost of grain drying, trucking and food processing. Every step of the food supply chain is becoming more expensive, and these costs do not simply disappear. Our farmers are absorbing significant costs. Compounded by increased market uncertainty, many are struggling to keep their operations viable. This is a growing threat to our food security that cannot be ignored.
As these costs increase across the supply chain, it ultimately means significant costs to Canadians at the grocery checkout. This is not the only hidden tax hitting Canadians at the grocery store. The Liberal food packaging tax is a tax on food, the Liberal fuel standard that adds 17¢ per litre is a tax on food, and the Liberals' inflation tax is yet another hidden tax on food. Conservatives have already put forward a motion in the House to cut these hidden taxes on food, and the Liberals rejected that motion. Their budget would double down on their decision.
Canadians deserve better than this credit card budget. This budget is not an affordable budget. This budget would mean more debt, more taxes, more inflation and more broken promises. This budget would be a burden on Canadians who are already struggling to pay for basic necessities. Conservatives are focused on restoring fiscal responsibility and making life more affordable for Canadians; removing the Liberal-made barriers that block major projects and slow down growth; cancelling the job-killing industrial carbon tax; and creating the conditions for real, sustainable investments. The Canadian promise that hard work will earn people a roof over their head, food on their table and a safe neighbourhood to live in should be—