Debates of June 6th, 2025

Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Act

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have been meeting with my constituents on the ground for months now. Whether it was at our markets, in our schools or in our neighbourhoods, they had a lot to share with me. I remember Manon in particular, a mother who told me that she sometimes has to choose between paying her rent or stocking her fridge.

Today, I am pleased and proud to rise in this honourable chamber to applaud the introduction of this affordability bill. It is good news for our country, good news for our families and good news for Mont-Saint-Bruno—L'Acadie. This bill is a testament to our deep commitment to Canadians. Our commitment is to ensure that people can live, not merely survive, and that they can feed and house themselves with dignity.

Our government has heard the call and has acted accordingly. Through our actions, we are delivering concrete solutions that will bring tangible results to the citizens of Mont-Saint-Bruno—L'Acadie. Cutting middle-class taxes, eliminating the GST on new, first-time home purchases valued at less than $1 million and scrapping the consumer carbon tax will give families some breathing room. When people can breathe easier, they invest in their community. They buy local products and support our businesses, farmers and entrepreneurs. That is good for people, good for businesses and good for our economy.

This bill is also a step toward greater equality. It shows that no one should have to choose between the two basic needs of food and heat. It demonstrates our deep commitment to leaving no one behind and our belief that progress is only meaningful when it is shared.

In conclusion, this bill is a victory for families. It is the result of serious work carried out with a sincere desire to improve the lives of our constituents. It restores purchasing power to people, offers hope to those who had doubts, and paves the way to a more stable, fair and livable future. Mont-Saint-Bruno—L'Acadie deserves this stability. I will remain committed here and on the ground so that every measure is implemented in our daily lives, so that the abstract becomes concrete. I would like to thank everyone who worked to move this bill forward. I thank Canadians for their trust and perseverance.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to welcome the hon. member to this place. I know he is a new member and that this is going to be the adventure of a lifetime for him, as it has been for me.

Does the hon. member know why, when the government is cancelling the consumer carbon tax for a whole host of reasons, which Conservatives have laid out over the years, it is not removing the industrial carbon tax?

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Madam Speaker, today, my colleague opposite has a golden opportunity to vote for a bill that will lower the cost of living for Canadians.

Will he and his party support us today?

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on his election and on his speech.

Right now we know that a big chunk of our country is on fire. We are over 2,000 kilometres away from the fires that are happening in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta, and here in Ottawa, the health index says the air quality is at nine. There is nothing in the budget to fund greener homes, to re-establish that program. There is nothing for heat pumps, nothing to create energy efficiency and lower costs and nothing that says the Liberal government understands there is a climate emergency taking place.

Is my colleague going to urge ministers and the Prime Minister to take real climate action?

We have been hearing from young people across the country who are asking for urgency. I have never seen anything like this in my life, where if a person walks outside, they will see smoky skies throughout the summer. It is occurring every year. When is the Liberal government going to take it seriously?

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Madam Speaker, today is an important day. We are going to introduce a bill that is very important for our country, for families.

Today, I hope that my colleague will be able to vote with us to support families and make life affordable.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Mont-Saint-Bruno—L'Acadie said that he met a woman named Manon who was having trouble making ends meet. I thought that was interesting.

We have a government that decided to request new funding for new spending. However, it does not have a budget. I am pretty sure that if Manon wants to be able to pay her rent and buy groceries, she has no choice but to make a budget, or nothing will add up.

In my colleague's view, what would Manon think of a government that spends money without having a plan or a budget?

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Madam Speaker, when I talked about lowering the tax rate and eliminating the GST during the election campaign, as I did with the woman my colleague mentioned, I heard the same comments everywhere I went.

Today, the Bloc Québécois and my colleague opposite have a golden opportunity to join us in supporting this bill.

I hope they will do so today.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Madam Speaker, from one new member to another, I would like to welcome my colleague to the chamber.

I am sure that, like any good first candidate, he knocked on many doors in his riding. I want to ask him what he was hearing from young people about housing in his riding and how they are trying to make that work.

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Madam Speaker, young people actually talked to me about the taxes that first-time homebuyers have to pay. During the election campaign, I told them we were going to get rid of the GST. I also talked to them about the practical things we are doing today.

Today, I hope the member will vote with us to support our bill.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Langley Township—Fraser Heights.

I rise to speak to Bill C-4, the Liberals' so-called making life more affordable for Canadians act. After 10 years of the Liberals, Canadians are facing an unprecedented cost of living crisis. In the 10 years that the Liberals have been in power, housing costs have doubled, rent has doubled, mortgage costs have more than doubled and food prices have skyrocketed. Indeed, the recently released “Canada Food Price Report 2025” reveals that the average Canadian family will pay $800 more in groceries this year compared to last year; this is as a record two million Canadians per month are lined up at the food bank and more than half of Canadians are $200 or less away from insolvency.

In the face of this cost of living crisis, the Liberals act as though they were mere bystanders, but the fact of the matter is that a big part of the reason we are facing this cost of living crisis is the failed and costly policies of the Liberals over the past 10 years.

Let us look at the record. The government has presided over a firehose of reckless spending and money printing that has fuelled inflation. It is no accident that quite recently, inflation hit a 40-year high. It is a government that pummelled everyday Canadians with a punitive carbon tax that increased the cost of everything, including essentials such as food, fuel and home heating. It is a government that year after year increased payroll taxes and other taxes, and imposed costly new regulations. It is also a government that has managed to spend tens of billions of dollars building bureaucracy instead of the homes that Canadians need, completely failing to address the supply shortage within the housing market.

In the face of that disastrous record, here we are debating what the Liberals are selling as the solution to the cost of living crisis they bear so much responsibility for creating. The best that can be said of the bill is that it is an admission of failure on the part of the Liberals, combined with a series of half measures.

Take the carbon tax as an admission of failure. The bill would repeal the consumer carbon tax. If there is one policy that has been the legacy of the government over the past 10 years, it has arguably been the carbon tax. The Liberals said that the carbon tax was absolutely essential and that it was the best policy tool available to combat climate change, which they purport to be the biggest crisis of our lifetime.

It is not only that, however; the Liberals also said that Canadians were actually better off paying the carbon tax. Why is that? It is because the Liberals claimed that Canadians received more money back in the way of rebates than they paid in the carbon tax. If that were true, then why would the Liberals be repealing that very carbon tax as part of their so-called making life more affordable for Canadians act?

The Liberals cannot have it both ways. Either Canadians were better off, or they were worse off, because of the carbon tax. This represents an admission of guilt on the part of the Liberals that for years they were misleading Canadians about the carbon tax and that Conservatives were right all along that the carbon tax was fuelling inflation and increasing the cost of everything, contributing to the cost of living crisis.

I have to say, with respect to the Prime Minister, that he likes to portray himself as someone who is very different from Justin Trudeau, but the Prime Minister was one of the architects of the carbon tax as an adviser to Justin Trudeau. The Prime Minister said that it was absolutely the right policy, and not only that but also that it represented a model for the world to follow. Now he has done a complete 180. This is an admission by the Prime Minister that he got it wrong all along and that the central, key policy of the past 10 years of the Liberals was a complete failure.

While it is an admission of failure by the Liberals, we say it is also half measures to repeal the consumer carbon tax. It is our position that the Liberals should repeal the industrial carbon tax. The Prime Minister's policy is to maintain that punitive tax and to continue to increase that tax year after year until 2030. It is a tax that undermines Canada's competitiveness. It is a tax that disadvantages key sectors of the economy at a time when sectors of the economy are grappling with 25% and 50% U.S. tariffs, tariffs that the U.S. ambassador said today are likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future.

We have a Prime Minister who wraps himself in the Canadian flag, claiming to be a great champion of the Canadian economy and Canadian workers, and here he is hitting key sectors over the head with a carbon tax hike on top of U.S. tariffs. The Prime Minister's policy, combined with U.S. tariffs, threatens to drive entire sectors, such as steel, aluminum and other heavy industrial sectors, out of Canada, and that will cost Canadian jobs. This is why Conservatives are calling on the Liberals to axe the tax on everything, for everyone, for good, including the industrial carbon tax.

Speaking of half measures, there is also the Liberals' so-called middle class tax cut. It is literally half measures insofar as it is half of the tax cut that the Liberals promised in the recent election campaign. We are two weeks into the current Parliament, and the Liberals are already breaking key election commitments.

So small, by the way, is the so-called middle-class tax cut that the savings that Canadians would realize would barely be enough to pay for a cup of coffee each week. It is hardly a middle-class tax cut; it is really nothing more than a gimmick. I would note that less than a cup of coffee a week is really next to nothing in the face of the average Canadian family's now paying $10,000 more in taxes than when the Liberals came to office.

There are some half measures in the bill that we can support, but that is the best that can be said of the bill, which is half measures, an admission of failure and an admission of guilt for the past 10 years of the Liberals' carbon tax policy.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I am a little disappointed in the member, in the sense that I would have expected him to have been a little bolder in terms of whether or not he actually supports the legislation.

If the member reflects on the last federal election, it was virtually unanimous to the extent that everyone would concur that affordability was an issue. It was an election promise made by the Prime Minister to deliver a tax break to the people of Canada. Twenty-two million people are going to benefit from the tax break, yet for some reason, the Conservatives just do not want to say whether or not they will support the legislation. We need to get the legislation passed so Canadians in every region of the country, all 22 million plus, would benefit from its being implemented before July 1.

Does the Conservative Party support the initiative to get the legislation passed before the end of June?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Madam Speaker, what Conservatives support is real tax relief for Canadians, which would be to abolish, axe completely, the entire carbon tax. That would mean a real middle-class tax cut, not a tax cut that results in savings that work out to roughly a coffee per week, and it would include a real cut in terms of GST on new homes, not the watered-down version copied and pasted from our Conservative platform.

Yes, we support relief for Canadians. They need it now, but this bill falls short.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's usual well-researched speech.

The platform that the Liberals announced during the election shows that the tax cut would cost the government about $5 billion a year in lost revenue, yet at the same time they have massively increased, by a larger amount, the amount of money they are going to give out to their friends at McKinsey, GC Strategies and other high-priced Liberal-connected consulting firms.

I wonder if my colleague could tell us what he thinks of the Liberal priority of giving taxpayer money to the McKinseys of the world and not to the average Canadian family.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Madam Speaker, it demonstrates that the Prime Minister represents a continuation of the same, with the current government, because that has been one of the defining features of the Liberals: to pad the pockets of their friends and of Liberal insiders. We saw that with McKinsey. We saw it with the $400-million green slush fund that seized Parliament last fall, and we see the same with this budget.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, I am going to ask the member a similar question to the one I asked earlier with respect to Bill C-4. It seeks to amend portions of the Elections Act, which has nothing to do with affordability. I wonder what the member's thoughts are on that.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I take the hon. member's point that it would have been more appropriate to have provided those amendments in the form of a separate piece of legislation.

With regard to the substance of part 4, the amendments to the Canada Elections Act, I do support those amendments: to have a uniform system in place with respect to privacy laws falling exclusively under federal jurisdiction, as they pertain to federal political parties.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, we have heard that the Liberals are going to be removing the carbon tax, called a consumer tax. However, I would like my colleague to speak to the fact that it is actually a retail carbon tax, which they are replacing with an industrial carbon tax, which would ultimately impact the consumer. Does my colleague think that it will impact the cost of homes? They are taking the GST off but will probably increase the overall cost.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Madam Speaker, the bottom line is that the Prime Minister's commitment to increase the industrial carbon tax not only would undermine Canada's competitiveness, but the costs borne would be passed on to consumers. Canadians would in fact be paying more, not less, as a result of the Prime Minister's industrial carbon tax hike.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to the making life more affordable for Canadians act. This act was made necessary by a decade of economic mismanagement by the Liberal government.

Why are things unaffordable for Canadians? Well, inflation is up. Let us take a look at the cost of groceries, which is at 3.8% inflation year over year, according to Stats Canada's April figures, which is twice the aggregate inflation for the same period for the whole economy per the consumer price index. As to the cost of housing, in the 10 years of the Liberal government, so far housing costs have doubled for both renters and buyers. That is way above the consumer price index. With interest rates going up, it is becoming even more difficult.

What is not up is wages. Wages have not been keeping up with inflation. Canadians have been working harder than ever but are not getting ahead. As a matter of fact, we are in a de facto recession if we measure GDP on a per capita basis. Yes, our GDP continues to grow, very slowly, very gradually, but below the rate of immigration.

More people are working, but not as productively as they should be. That is not their fault. The Liberal government has been mismanaging the economy for all these years, focusing more on distributing wealth rather than on creating new wealth. This has led to a decade of deficit spending, money printing, inflation, high interest rates and anemic economic growth. That is the challenge.

This is not just Conservatives talking. I want to quote the former Liberal minister of finance's 2022 budget, which, incidentally, was called “A Plan to Grow Our Economy and Make Life More Affordable”. Here we are, three years later, with the same phraseology, but nothing has happened; nothing has improved. This is what she had to say in her 2022 budget:

But we are falling behind when it comes to economic productivity. Productivity matters because it is what guarantees the dream of every parent—that our children will be more prosperous than we are.

This is a well-known Canadian problem—and an insidious one. It is time for Canada to tackle it.

It is not just the Liberal minister of finance who was saying that. Just as recently as a year ago, Carolyn Rogers of the Bank of Canada had this to say about productivity:

[It] is a way to inoculate the economy against inflation. An economy with low productivity can grow only so quickly before inflation sets in. But an economy with strong productivity can have faster growth, more jobs and higher wages with less risk of inflation. That's why I want to talk about Canada's long-standing, poor record on productivity and show you just how big the problem is. You've seen those signs that say, “In emergency, break glass.” Well, it’s time to break the glass.

This is an emergency. It was an emergency then. It continues to be an emergency today.

The OECD, in a report that came out just last month, had this to say about Canada's economy:

The level of Canada’s labour productivity lags its peers and the current trade tensions with the United States is likely to compound it. Revamping the country’s productivity growth requires a combination of policy actions. Canada's natural disadvantage in having dispersed and relatively small markets has to be countered by making sure regulatory barriers are as low as possible, including those restricting domestic trade....

I agree with all of that. Getting rid of regulatory barriers is what we have been saying all along for the last two or three years on the Conservative side. We have said to get government gatekeepers out of the way; let free enterprise unleash it. Unfortunately, this draft bill does not talk about anything like that. It does not talk about reducing red tape. It does not talk about improving productivity. There are actions the government could take that would lead to permanent and sustainable affordability. That is what it is after, but it is not achieving that.

The bill does talk about lowering taxes and we do not disagree with that. Conservatives generally support lower taxes, less government, more free market initiatives and more competition, because free market competition makes us more profitable, makes us stronger, makes us more resilient and makes us more productive. That allows for higher wages for hard-working Canadians so they can afford to live.

However, I want to look at this tax break in perspective. I did not do the math myself, but it has been said that it is going to result in roughly $800 in savings for the average Canadian family. If I take the average Canadian family in my riding of Langley Township—Fraser Heights, which might have a mortgage on their house of half a million dollars, and that is completely conceivable with starter homes being around $1 million, we can say that they have to renew their mortgage. Interest rates are up 2% since the last time they renewed or secured their interest rate. That works out to about $830 every month. Would this family welcome a tax break of $800? Yes, of course it would. It would help them for one month. The trouble is, there are 11 more months in the year, so the help really does not go very far at all. It is a half measure.

I am here to say that there is a better way for the government to do this to really make life more affordable, and that is to grow the economy and create a sustainable environment where wages can go up without creating inflation. This is what the economists have been telling us and what the former finance minister and the Bank of Canada recognize. The government does not seem to get that idea.

The best thing for the federal government to do to improve affordability for Canadians is to create an environment that encourages more private investment in innovation. However, the 10-year record of Liberal governments show quite the opposite. Here is what the recent OECD report says about Canada's investment environment: non-residential investment is dead last in the OECD; intellectual property investment is second to last; machinery and equipment, or in other words, improving our factories to be more innovative, efficient and productive, is dead last; real estate, on the other hand, is near the top. This is the Canadian story: Do not invest in innovative factories, new inventions and intellectual property; invest in real estate.

I do not blame real estate investors for doing that. Investment dollars are going to go where there is a good return on investment with a minimal risk. We have seen governments, both provincial and federal, tackling the perceived real estate market by sometimes making it more difficult and less attractive to invest in real estate, “Let us increase capital gains taxes.” Other times, we see the government doing exactly the opposite, as we see it doing here today, making it easier to invest in housing, “Let us give homeowners a GST break.”

The Conservatives do not disagree with that. We ran on axing the tax, including income tax, carbon tax and GST, on new homes, but we are not impressed with the half measures we see in this bill. We will be looking for other initiatives from the government to take big, bold steps to take serious action to improve Canada's economy and affordability for Canadians. Is this the government that is going to do it? The Liberals keep saying, “Well, it is a new government.” I look at the benches on the opposite side and see many of the old faces. We are certainly hearing the old rhetoric. We are hearing old ideas being recycled, and I am not confident that this is the party or the government that is going to show us a big turnaround in Canada's economy.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it is a new Prime Minister, and it is, indeed, a new government. We have seen a number of initiatives that have been taken that make it very clear that we have our Conservative friends across the way feeling a little uncomfortable. One would think there would be some natural things that they would be voting in favour of. I can recall the last time we gave a substantial tax break to Canadians. A number of years ago, Conservatives voted against it. Now, we have another piece of legislation, Bill C-4, which gives Canadians a significant tax break.

Will the member commit that he will vote in favour of this legislation and possibly go further to even suggest that the Conservatives might vote in favour of the legislation?

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

Madam Speaker, there the member for Winnipeg North goes again saying the Liberal government is a whole new government. No, it is not. It has the same old ideas, just recycled and repackaged, and somehow it is expecting Canadians to believe that this time, finally, it has the solutions.

If we talk about housing, housing prices have doubled in the 10 years of the Liberals' regime. What is so different today that Canadians can have confidence that it is going to be different? We are not impressed with the half measures of the bill.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am in my correct seat today, so thank you for recognizing me.

I want to thank the hon. member for his great speech. I know he has had a long career in the law profession, and I think land development was the area.

Can the member comment a bit about what the trend lines are around new home building in his neck of the woods?

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

Madam Speaker, new housing construction starts in my area, the Lower Mainland, are down. There might be a bit of a blip up right now. I am not quite sure exactly what the latest trends are.

A combination of bad legislation from both the federal government and the provincial NDP government has not been helping. We just wish the government would stay out of the way and encourage private enterprise to take care of the housing problem. I think it would happen in a balanced economy.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is surely among the people who voted to ask the government to present a budget before the summer, because that is one of the things both the Bloc Québécois and the Conservative Party were calling for.

I know that the member has been in office for quite a few years. Does he think that when the House votes in favour of something, it has any value? Is that something the government should take into account, or does it not matter?

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

Madam Speaker, this is the way Canadian democracy works. We get voted into this House of Commons. Canadians have once again said they want a minority government, but the Liberals are acting as though they have a majority.

The reality is that the Liberals need to work with us. They need to work with the opposition in order to get things done. They expect co-operation from us. We expect co-operation from them. What is the big deal in presenting a budget, as every government does every year? Why is the government not doing it?