Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Foothills for his amazing speech. The start was something that hits home for me, being from Saskatchewan. We had the Humboldt bus crash a few years ago. Whenever there is a tragedy in the hockey community, it hits everyone pretty hard. A few years ago, I used to think about it from the perspective of being a hockey player myself, playing some hockey and travelling on buses. I now think about my kids being on those buses.
From Regina—Lewvan and all across Saskatchewan, to the member for Foothills, to the families, to the Mustangs hockey team and all of their extended families, our hearts are with them. It is a very tough time. Our hearts go out to everyone involved: best wishes and God bless them.
I will now transition, like my colleague did, to talking about our opposition motion. I really want to start by reading out what the opposition motion is. I think that, a lot of times, some of our colleagues maybe just get their direction on how to vote from the whip's office over on the Liberal side, and they have not read the motion. I would like to see what they disagree with in the motion. I am going to read the motion:
That, given that the finance minister promised in October 2023 that food prices would stabilize “soon” and that the Prime Minister stated in May 2025 that he would be judged by the prices at the grocery store, and that,
(i) Canadians face the highest food inflation in the G7,
(ii) food inflation is twice as high as it was when the Prime Minister took office,
(iii) food inflation in Canada is twice as high as it is in the United States,
(iv) Canadians made 2.2 million visits a month to food banks,
(v) food bank use has more than doubled since the Liberals took power,
the House call on the government to immediately introduce a Food Affordability Plan that:
(a) removes the Liberals' hidden taxes on food, including,
(i) the industrial carbon tax on farm equipment, fertilizer, and food processors, that drives up the costs of producing food and are passed onto consumers,
(ii) the fuel standards tax, which is seven cents a litre—
This is according to Environment Canada's own numbers.
—and rising to 17 cents a litre on farmers, truckers, and those who bring us our food,
(iii) the food packaging tax that will cost Canadians $1.3 billion; and
(b) boosts competition in our overly-concentrated grocery sector.
My questions and comments are going to be around this: What is there to disagree with in this?
The Liberals always say that there are no hidden food taxes. I am going to read a quote from Sylvain Charlebois, who was on the Evan Bray Show in Saskatchewan, one of our most popular call-in shows, I might add. This is exactly what Sylvain Charlebois, the food professor, said on the Evan Bray Show:
I’ve always believed that taxing food is immoral. It shouldn’t happen, but it is happening, and a lot of people think that we’re only taxing bad food. That’s actually not true, because for inflation, there are more and more products being impacted. We have some goofy fiscal rules in Canada. For example, if you buy two muffins and it’s over $4, it’s not taxable. Under $4, it is taxable. If you buy four muffins, then that’s not taxable. If you buy five granola bars, that’s taxable. Six is not taxable. I mean, it’s all over the place and it’s very confusing. And I’ve always believed that when you get to the till, a lot of people don’t even look at their receipts, but you’d be surprised how much taxes you actually pay.
That combats some of the conversation we have had from the Liberal side of the aisle, when the food professor has laid out some of the taxes that are paid on groceries when one is at the grocery store. I pack lunches, not as many lunches as my wife packs, obviously, because I am here a bit more. Our kids take muffins and granola bars and sandwich meat and bread and cheese to make sandwiches. They all take that for school lunches. Those are all taxed because they are processed. The Liberals never really complete that end of the story.
I know it is hitting people harder and harder. We have a lot of families. As I said off the top, when we were talking about hockey, my three kids all play hockey, and many, many parents now are packing groceries to take on these trips when we are going to different towns. One of the parents was amazed. We were going on a trip for two days, and they went and bought fruit, vegetables, sandwich meat, cheese and buns. It was two bags of groceries. It was $187. That makes it harder and harder to get by. I am not sure if some of my colleagues across the way are not having these same conversations with parents or with seniors. My colleague from Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan just brought up an excellent point about how little the increase is that seniors have been getting. How do they expect to keep up with the rising cost of groceries?
As has been stated, the cost of groceries is going to go up $1,000 this year for a family of four. I do not know of any benefit that is going to keep up with that rise in the cost of food.
Another comment I am wondering about is in respect to the fuel standard tax, which costs seven cents a litre and will be rising to 17¢ a litre. My colleagues across the way are always saying that there are no hidden taxes on groceries. In question period today, our leader informed the Prime Minister, who did not know, that it came from the documents of ECCC, Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Our leader had a very good question for the Prime Minister that was not answered. Are we supposed to believe what the Prime Minister said, which is that there is no clean fuel tax, or ECCC's documents, which say that the clean fuel tax is going to add 17¢ a litre to gasoline by 2030? I think I will take the department's advice since it has the experts.
As my colleague from Foothills said, if anyone thinks that an increase in fuel prices does not affect the price at their grocery store, either they are lying to themselves or they are lying to each other, because all food at grocery stores is trucked from all over this country and all over North America with our interconnected supply chains.
One thing that I want to make very clear right now to the six or seven people watching this is that tariffs do not affect food prices. There are very minimal tariffs on any food coming into this country. The Liberals try to conflate that and make it a global problem, but it is actually untrue. There are very few tariffs affecting the prices at the grocery store. The Liberals should take responsibility for what they have caused over the past 10 years.
I remember when I asked about this in question period: The finance minister stood up in 2023 and said that they would stabilize grocery prices by Thanksgiving. That was almost three years ago, and they brought out the same program as the one they brought out a couple of days ago, a rebate program.
I want everyone out there to know that they would get $10 a week with this rebate program. Most Canadians are spending $300 a week on their grocery bill, so they would get a $10 coupon for a $300 grocery bill. Sure, it is nice and people would take it, but it would not change the fact that food prices continue to go up.
We want to look at the root of this problem of food price inflation, and we need to look at what we are doing domestically. TD brought out a report today that says that two-thirds of the cause of food prices is domestic policy. That means that we need to look at what we are doing and what the Liberals have been doing to not combat food prices. That means the industrial carbon tax, the fuel standard and the packaging price that my friend talked about, which is $1.3 billion to change plastic packaging.
Not using plastic packaging is going to really add to the food waste in this country. Processors said this at the agriculture committee. I know the agriculture minister sits at the kids' table and does not get to make a bunch of decisions, but the fact that we are trying to tie the hands of food processors in their ability to transport food safely and make sure that it is preserved and has a longer shelf life is a problem that the Liberals have made internally. That is laid completely at their feet.
We have read out the motion. We have put down some clear guidelines for what we would like to see in a food affordability plan. I would ask some of my Liberal colleagues to look at this motion line by line. Some of it might not feel good. Reading that 2.2 million people are visiting the food banks is not a good-news story, but it is happening in our country.
We are the breadbasket of the world. We have the best producers and the best farmers, and we should have the ability to feed our own population. A lot of that inability and a lot of that food inflation is because of the policies that have been put forward by the government in the last 10 years.