Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today. Since this is my first opportunity to give a speech in the House since the election, I want to thank the constituents of Foothills and the families in southern Alberta who once again elected me to represent them in the House of Commons. I am honoured that we received the second-highest number of votes in the country, almost 55,000. Only my colleague from Ponoka—Didsbury was able to surpass the wonderful people of Foothills. That certainly goes to show that our message as Conservatives standing up for Alberta resonates with my constituents in Foothills.
I want to state that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Cloverdale—Langley City. I welcome back to the House of Commons such an outstanding colleague here with me.
As the Conservative shadow minister for agriculture and agri-food, it is my duty to stand here and represent and be the voice for the hard-working farmers and ranchers and producers right across this country, as well as for those Canadians who have gone to the grocery store shelves over the last few months and have questioned how this could possibly be getting worse. People are asking this because the Prime Minister stated emphatically that he would be judged by the prices at the grocery store shelves. The Prime Minister said that, not the opposition. By his own metrics, by the Prime Minister's own statement, he has failed Canadians.
I admit that I rise today with some frustration, as certainly all of us in this House are hearing from our constituents who are frustrated with the price of groceries at the grocery store shelf, given the promises by the Liberal Prime Minister. It seems to us that they are the same old Liberals with the same old promises and the same old promises broken.
The average family is now spending close to $1,000 more a year on groceries: close to $16,000. These prices continue to rise: oranges are up more than 20%; apples, 20%; beef, more than 30%; rice, 14%, and the list goes on and on. As a result, Canadians are having to make very difficult choices every single month when they do their household budgets. I would expect that Canadians would want the government to follow their lead and actually have a budget showing Canadians where their tax dollars are going and just how bad the fiscal situation that the Liberals have left us is.
The Liberals are great at blaming someone else for their problems. The parliamentary secretary is still blaming COVID. I am sure the Liberals are going to be blaming Harper later today. However, the Prime Minister was the financial adviser for the previous prime minister, Trudeau, for more than five years. This is not a new group. The finance minister has been there for 10 years. The former finance minister has been there for 10 years. It is not like the Liberals do not have some data to go by. These are not new Liberals. However, despite the Liberals' refusal to table a budget, it is Canadians who are paying the price. They are paying the price at the grocery store shelf every single day.
The current Prime Minister said during the election that he was going to be different. Clearly, in only a couple of months, he is different; I would say arguably worse. He said that he would keep spending increases at 2%, that he would cap that, but his first group of estimates shows that he has increased spending more than 8%, by half a trillion dollars in more deficit spending. At a time when inflation and food security are top of mind, the government is continuing to throw gas on the inflationary fire. Not only are the Liberals breaking these promises; they are shattering them with this type of spending, and they refuse to hold themselves accountable, with their policies driving up food costs. If anything, the policies they continue to want to implement and continue to champion would only make matters worse. Ideological policies like front-of-pack labelling, a P2 plastics ban, a tariff on fertilizer, fertilizer and crop protection reductions and industrial carbon tax will all make life more difficult for farmers, manufacturers, truckers and retailers. All those costs get passed down to the consumer at the grocery store shelf.
I want to give a few examples of the incredible consequences these ideological policies will have on consumers. Michael Graydon, the CEO of Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada, stated at the agriculture committee last year that the Liberals' nonsensical front-of-pack warning labels will cost the industry an additional $8 billion and that manufacturers will have no choice to pass on those additional costs to the consumers, driving up food prices at the grocery store.
An in-depth report by Deloitte stated that the impact of the Liberals' P2 plastics ban on Canadian producers and produce growers will be catastrophic; it will increase the cost of produce another 35%. That is over and above the inflationary increases that we are already seeing as a result of the Liberals' out-of-control spending. It will reduce the availability of fresh produce by 50%. It will cost growers and producers more than $6 billion in additional costs. It will increase food waste by 50%.
At a time when Canadians are wanting to support Canadian growers, Liberal policy is bankrupting Canadian producers. More than 44% of growers of fresh fruit and vegetables in Canada are already selling their products at a loss, and this is before the new ideological policies are being implemented.