Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by stating that I will be sharing my time with our chief whip, who is first and foremost the member for Berthier—Maskinongé. I think that he himself would say that his role as a member of Parliament is the more important one. We Bloc Québécois members are, above all, here to represent our constituents.
It is in the rather unusual context of the return of Parliament, where we are hearing one thing and the complete opposite at the same time, that I rise today to speak on this Conservative opposition day. I will not read out their motion in full, but will instead focus on certain facts that we can share with the Conservatives. These are things that we observed while travelling around our respective ridings this past summer.
The first part of the motion talks about “food inflation”. It says that food prices have risen, food banks are expecting high volumes of visits, and food bank use is up. These are things that we, too, are seeing.
I will not speak to the second part because, as usual, the Conservatives are offering bogus solutions to real problems.
I have seen what the situation is in my own riding of Shefford. My principal role is to represent the people of Shefford, but I am also the Bloc Québécois critic for status of women and seniors. In my speech, I am therefore going to highlight what I am seeing with regard to growing poverty among women and seniors.
Costs are exploding in the agriculture sector, as we know, and this is having a definite impact. Producers are telling us that their input costs are up. Many Quebec farms are already drowning in debt. According to the Union des producteurs agricoles, farm debt in Quebec exceeded $20 billion in 2022.
I wanted to start by taking stock of the situation because the motion talks a lot about the increase in food prices and food bank use. For the agricultural community, there is no question that the rise in input costs and debt levels are having an impact on food prices down the line.
Then there is inflation. The middle class is getting poorer. Cumulative inflation in housing, food and transportation is driving some members of the middle class to the brink of poverty. Low-income households now spend nearly two-thirds of their income on non-discretionary expenses, including housing, food and transportation. They have very little left to make ends meet.
Yes, people are going hungry. I have heard about it first-hand. We have a hunger relief organization in my riding called SOS Dépannage. This outstanding organization told me that there has been a major uptick in demand for food banks, which are now receiving over two million visits a month. Food banks say they are overwhelmed. This is not right.
I have also seen numbers showing that unemployed people are not the only ones affected by this problem. Many workers, people with jobs, are being forced to visit food banks. That is shocking. This is a new reality for food banks. Again, SOS Dépannage told me that more and more people, including people with jobs, are using food banks. More seniors and single mothers are also visiting food banks. This is the new reality.
Poverty among seniors is not getting any better. Seniors are losing their homes. With both rent and food prices rising, more and more seniors are being forced to choose between putting food on the table, heating their homes and paying rent. I think it is worth noting that people 65 and over will account for nearly a quarter of Quebec's population by 2031. We know that many seniors rely solely on the public system and therefore live on an average of $24,500 a year. As the Observatoire québécois des inégalités, with which I jointly organized a conference on seniors' financial health, has noted, this amount is not nearly enough to cover housing, food and health care.
Seniors are being forced to re-enter the workforce after retiring. They have no choice, if they want to eat. Many have been reduced to picking up shifts at the age of 70 just to pay for groceries. This should not be happening. Staying in the workforce should be a choice seniors make because they want to work and continue to participate in the workforce.
Let us talk about women and poverty. Women stay in violent situations because they are afraid of ending up on the street. This summer, funding for shelters was blocked. As a result, women and children were forced to move back in with their abusers. Bloc Québécois members told me about this situation that was happening in their region this summer. It is unacceptable. According to a recent study, violence against women is the most common cause of homelessness among women. The number of senior clients is rising, and more and more women are ending up on the street. Those seeking shelter are struggling: 84% of the women staying in shelters were fleeing intimate partner violence, and 70% had been living with their abuser before leaving. For some of them, not being sure if they can find a shelter bed or housing forces them to remain in violent situations. This cycle is hard to break.
Affordable housing is at a standstill. Projects that had already received their promised funding have been put on hold by Ottawa, including the shelters I mentioned. Meanwhile, families are sleeping in their cars. In Granby, which is in the riding of Shefford, 1,275 households, or 4% of all households, are living in core housing need, which means their living situation is less than satisfactory. The town is doing incredible work. It is doing what it can, but it will need other levels of government to step in and lend a hand. Among seniors, 11% of Granby's households over age 65 are facing a dire housing situation. In terms of rental housing, nearly half of Granby's households are renters, and many are dependent on an already strained rental market. Among homeowners, 8.2% spend 30% or more of their income on housing. Even owning a home is no guarantee of long-term accessibility or security.
Then there is youth and poverty. This summer, people talked to us about how the poverty rate among youth aged 18 to 24 is 14.3% , one of the highest among all age groups. Many young people are employed in precarious jobs or working part-time or on short-term contracts, so they are not eligible for employment insurance, which has a big impact on their mental health. We might also talk about marginalized communities, indigenous people, immigrants, who are overrepresented in statistics on poverty and homelessness. Since Granby is such a welcoming community, that is another reality I heard about this summer.
I will now tie all this back to the Bloc Québécois's demands. The Bloc Québécois is calling for a complete overhaul of employment insurance, because the social safety net is so full of holes that entire families are being left to fend for themselves. This fall, I will also be returning to an issue that we discussed during the election campaign. I hear about it in the community from seniors' groups. In fact, I have meetings scheduled soon. People want us to bring back the bill to increase old age security starting at age 65, because it is not acceptable to divide seniors into two categories: those 75 and over who can afford to eat and those 74 and under who should go hungry. The age of retirement is 65. The government boasts that it lowered the age of retirement to 65 from 67, but what does that age of retirement actually mean to the Liberal government?
We are also calling for the funds for affordable and social housing to be released. Meaningless announcements and withheld cheques will not shelter anyone from the cold weather that is on its way. We are a few weeks from seeing people on the streets run the risk of getting frostbite and freezing to death. That is not acceptable. We are also calling for immediate support for shelters. Women should not have to choose between violence and homelessness. People are not asking for much. They just want to be able to eat three times a day and be able to live and age with dignity. We can see that this government has failed to guarantee even that. The Liberals brag about being great with the economy. During the election campaign, they said they would be there to solve the crux of the crisis, the cost of living issue.
In July, I took advantage of my summer tour on employment to meet with representatives of organizations using this program constructively. People like this program. That being said, the representatives wanted me to be aware of the increase in violence against women and the increase in homelessness among seniors. In August, people focused more on the economy. Representatives of businesses and agricultural producers told us climate change was affecting them and that this was affecting grocery prices. They also talked about temporary foreign workers. They need labour. That also has an impact on grocery prices and the economy in general. In short, we need to take action, not propose bogus solutions to real problems.