Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today. I would like to begin by acknowledging that today is the anniversary of the Franco-Ontarian flag. We salute our neighbours who share our language.
I turn now to the item on our agenda. As I mentioned in my questions, I am deeply disappointed. Many of my Conservative colleagues are extremely intelligent, and I really enjoy working with them in committee. We are all passionate about farming, and in committee we are able to work together on sustainable solutions. However, when they introduce yet another motion on carbon pricing , I feel compelled to remind them that they already won that debate. The carbon tax has been withdrawn.
Of course, the Conservatives are talking about industrial carbon pricing today, but the fact is we have to continue taking action on climate change, which is having long-term impacts on the cost of food. Anyone who has spoken with our agricultural producers, especially vegetable producers, has come to understand the harsh reality they face. This situation calls for ingenuity on our part and a willingness to work together to improve commercial risk management systems, because the current systems are no longer working.
Some producers are have no choice but to insure against cloudy weather. If they are unlucky enough to have to make a claim, then their group insurance premiums will sometimes double or triple the following year, which makes the system untenable. More and more producers are opting not to get insurance, not because they do not want to, but because it is simply no longer cost-effective. They look at whether their insurance will be worth it if they were to suffer some misfortune. If they have to make a claim and, the following year, their premiums quadruple, they are no further ahead. Sooner or later we are going to have to clue in to this as a group, and by that I mean all members of the House of Commons. There has to be adequate support for our farmers.
Returning to the motion before us today, the Conservatives won the debate over the carbon tax. However, grocery prices have not gone down. The carbon tax was removed in English Canada, not in Quebec, but prices in Quebec are no higher than in the rest of the country. Prices have not come down everywhere else in Canada. It might be a good idea to stop taking lazy, populist shortcuts like this.
This is what is called an inflationary tax, but the deficit is not a tax. On this point, I agree with my colleagues that the deficit is ludicrous. It is atrocious, and it is bound to have a negative impact over the medium and long term. The more debt we carry, the more we have to spend a significant portion of our income on interest to pay down that debt. That is true for taxpayers, and it is also true for the government.
What worries me most about all this, despite the Liberal rhetoric we are going to hear all day that they are here to support people, is that the government has increased spending. As my colleague pointed out when talking about old age pensions, transfers to taxpayers and the provinces are insufficient. Take employment insurance, for example. It is a completely obsolete system that is not working. Nearly one in two workers are not eligible for benefits, despite their contributions. That is unacceptable and it does not work. Spending in this area has increased by only 2.6%.
Meanwhile, contracts awarded to private firms to conduct studies or make decisions on behalf of the government have increased by 26%, even though the resources exist within government. Government procurement is up 300%, and that does not even include military spending. We can do the math; it is not looking good. The Conservatives are right: The deficit is not good. It is not a tax, though. Shortcuts do not move us forward.
They are talking about the second carbon tax, the clean fuel tax, which has such a minimal impact on food prices that it is virtually impossible to measure. The government will eventually have to stop giving handouts to oil companies that keep polluting our air and water while making a profit. I find it exhausting and, with all due regard for my Conservative friends, I have to say that enough is enough. Can we work on concrete proposals instead? I have listed a few.
They are talking about a “packaging tax”. What good is a packaging tax when we want to reduce plastics? If the Conservatives want a better understanding of the issue, I would be happy to recommend some news stories or documentaries about the state of our oceans. There is only one planet, and we are all connected. If we can start using less plastic, that will be a step in the right direction, but we have to be smart about it. That is where we can really shine.
Indeed, some plastics still have a place in the agricultural sector to preserve the quality of some foodstuff, such as vegetables. Vegetable shelf life would decline by a factor of four or five if plastics were banned overnight. As a government, we should not be dumb enough to ban everything overnight. More research and development and more academic research is needed. Solutions must be found and validated before we get rid of things. That being said, generally, the intent to restrict plastics is not bad, quite the opposite.
I do not know whether this fixation that drives the Conservatives to keep using the terms “tax” and “carbon tax” shows perseverance or a lack of imagination; in any case, it is time to move on. I will move on to something else and talk about what is really going on with food prices.
First, this is a global phenomenon that is very difficult for a government to control. I do not want to excuse the Liberal government but would simply like to say that there is no magic solution. However, there are things we could do.
I will give a simple example that nobody is talking about. I would remind members about the ongoing wars. We have the war in Ukraine. Russia attacked Ukraine without justification. Ukraine is the bread basket for a large part of the world. The war has therefore had an inflationary impact. This is one factor that is beyond our control. However, we can control some things.
For instance, the government decided to impose a surtax on Russian fertilizer. I welcomed this measure initially. I thought it was a good idea. We must impose consequences on aggressors. However, when we consider that Canada is the only G7 country that has taken this step and that ultimately, it has not had any impact, we can do away with this measure and use other means of coercion to bring Russia around.
However, the Canadian government lacked judgment. It simply decided to reimburse the farmers, but when the time came, it could not even manage to do it. We do not know who paid what, and then there are grain co-ops. Eventually, the government put this money into a program, but now, it is the very farmers who need help who are funding it. It is still going on, and they have to pay for it. It is not working. This is just one example of what I mean when I say we need to be serious.
Then there is also the labour shortage. We need to play it smart when it comes to temporary foreign workers. The government is currently in the process of changing the thresholds. That is fine, and I am not saying the government should not review them, but this needs to happen gradually, particularly in terms of making the change from 20% to 10% across the other sectors. Even if we are only talking about the food sector, all of the sectors are interconnected in an economy. We have asked for a moratorium and a transition period to allow businesses to adapt to this.
Some will say that the agricultural sector is exempt. They are right, but I want to talk about agri-food. What we produce has to be processed, and processing involves costs. There was a pilot project in the agri-food sector, where the threshold of 30% foreign labour was lowered to 20%. There was talk of lowering it to 10%, but fortunately, the government had the presence of mind to leave it at 20%. That is a minimum, and it could be raised to 30% again. I invite my colleagues to visit food processing plants. That will help them understand. These factors all indirectly affect grocery costs.
Reciprocal standards are another consideration. We cannot keep demanding that our producers meet extremely strict standards while we allow low-quality foreign products to enter the country. At some point, we need to get serious. Although we do try to ask questions about reciprocal standards, there are three different agencies involved. For instance, when we try to speak to one minister, we are always told that we have to contact another one. Is anyone responsible and accountable? Can we start by getting things on track?
These are quick and easy measures that the government can take to provide some support to the public. Can we finally get down to business and approve the OAS increase starting at age 65? Every member of the House, whether in private or in public, thinks that this move makes sense, especially in the current context, so, let us do it. If only political posturing and point-scoring would stop getting in the way. Could we not work together for the common good?
There is a great deal of inefficiency within our government food regulation organizations like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency or the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, the PMRA. We will be meeting with representatives from those organizations this afternoon at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. I look forward to talking to them, but what I am hearing from people in the agricultural community does not make any sense. In some cases, Quebec government scientists and independent scientists had a position to share, but the people at the PMRA did not want to hear it because it came from the provinces. This week we talked about federal supremacy. This is true in all areas of this federation.
Let us be serious and work for everybody. Enough with the populist slogans. Let us work on solutions to lower the cost of groceries.