Madam Speaker, in the last election, the Prime Minister said Canadians should judge him by the prices at the grocery store. Those were his words, but since then, he has actually failed. The stats are in; the facts are in. We have the highest food inflation in the G7, higher than in the U.S., actually double that of the U.S. There are 2.5 million food bank visits in a single month. A quarter of them are for children. There is a 10% increase in homelessness encampments in Ontario. There is a crisis that is unfolding.
Every time someone goes to the grocery store to buy some nutritious food for their family, they go to the check-out lane, look at the food they are buying and look at the price being rung in. They cannot believe their eyes. Seniors are putting items back on the shelf just because they cannot afford them. Working-class folks who have decent jobs are now relying on food banks for the first time. The demand for food banks is actually at one of its highest levels. One of the food banks in my riding said that people who once used to once donate to the food bank are the ones actually using it now.
Just last week I received one of the toughest, worst emails I think I have ever received in my three years as the member of Parliament for Oxford. I woke up and looked at an email from a senior. She asked how she can apply for MAID. She wanted to end her life. In that email, she talked about the reason why. She said she cannot afford to eat. She does not feel like being a burden to her own family, to her kids. That is a story from my riding. This is happening in Canada. I could give members lots of examples of food insecurity in our communities.
The government, instead of going after the root cause of fixing this crisis, is bringing forward temporary relief. I always say that any relief is good relief. I always believe we should be giving taxpayers their money back, but we have to look at the larger context.
How is it that our food inflation is double that of the U.S.? I know the Liberal government blames the U.S. for everything, but this is a domestic problem. It is a homegrown problem. Our farmers are being punished with rising input costs and taxes on fertilizer. Our shippers are seeing their costs go up. Truckers are feeling the pain. Food processors are dealing with regulatory burdens and more red tape than anywhere else in the world. In Oxford, a senior came up to me and said that it is cheaper to buy produce that is grown in Mexico, 3,400 kilometres away, than it is to buy Oxford-grown produce.
My question is this: Why will the government not scrap these hidden types of—