Mr. Speaker, I will not resign on that, but I will certainly withdraw that. It is all in good humour. Again, for people who are watching this on TV, obviously members go back and forth, and the rhetoric gets high, but there are also a lot of friends on both sides of the aisle here. I appreciate the good-hearted comment.
Let us talk about some economic facts. I know the party opposite likes to talk about food inflation and how prices are high, and it is easy easy to cherry-pick 10 items. I know beef has been listed a lot. I used to work for a company called Canada Packers, which sold beef. Beef, historically, is always high at this time of year, for what that is worth.
I think turkey prices have come down. I remember the former leader of the opposition talking about these multi-hundred-dollar turkeys. I bought a turkey at our grocery store here two weeks ago; it was $29.
Let us talk economic facts. Inflation, two years ago, was at 8.7%, and oh my gosh, the whole way up, it was our fault. There was this little thing called COVID. There was inflation in basically every country around the world, but it was our fault. It was our government's fault that inflation was happening. In two years, we have brought that down from 8.1%, I believe, to 1.7%. It is below the Bank of Canada's target rate.
Do we have a lot of work to do? Absolutely. Have prices come down like we want them to? No, they have not, but our economy is showing signs of life. We have a AAA Moody's credit rating. Workforce participation is 65.3%. In the U.S., it is 62.5%. There are a lot of good things happening in our economy. Real GDP just rose by 2.2% in the first quarter, surpassing expectations.
Look, there is nobody on this side of the House, there is nobody in the House, who is not saying we have more work to do as a party, as a government, as MPs. Do we need to hold grocery stores more to account? Absolutely we do, but our economy is growing, and our economy is going to thrive again under the leadership of our Prime Minister.
At door after door after door, people wanted our Prime Minister to lead this country. I think it goes without saying, with his economic background, his economic strength. They compared the two leaders. Straight up, they compared the two leaders, and they chose our Prime Minister. Sadly, the former leader of the opposition could not even hold his own riding.
Our economy is going to continue to grow. Right now, our government's main laser focus is to deliver for Canadians. We have moved forward with the plan to bring down costs so Canadians can keep more of their paycheques to spend where it matters the most. What I am talking about is the middle-class tax cut, effective July 1. It is going to have an impact on 22 million Canadians, saving families up to $840 a year.
We want Canadians to have more money to put back in their pockets. It was a great idea. I am glad the Conservatives have joined us in helping us move that legislation forward. This is because the majority of relief on this tax cut is going to go to Canadians with incomes in the lowest two tax brackets, which is to say those with taxable incomes under $114,750 in 2025.
Within that group of hard-working Canadians, nearly half of the tax savings would go to those in the lowest tax bracket, which is to say those who earn $57,375 or less in 2025. We can deliver these tax savings to Canadians expeditiously because, with the announcement of our middle-class tax cut, the Canada Revenue Agency has updated its source deduction tables for the July to December 2025 period so that pay administrators are able to reduce tax withholdings as of July 1.
That is a government of action. That is a government that is responding to Canadians' needs. Sometimes, when I listen to the members across, I would not think we had a throne speech just two weeks ago. I would not believe we were elected to government just on April 28.
We want to make sure that our budget is accurate. We want to make sure that we take the time. There is absolutely no doubt that when we deliver our budget in the fall, it is going to be accurate, it is going to be serious and it is going to be delivered by one of the best finance ministers we have had, Minister Champagne.