Debates of Feb. 3rd, 2026

Opposition Motion—Food Affordability

[Carlos Leitão, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yes, greenhouse fruit and vegetable production will be included in our bill, which we will be discussing this afternoon in committee. We are including measures in that bill to promote greenhouse cultivation, vertical farming and urban agriculture. I think all of that is very important.

As for the research centres, I think there was some consolidation going on. The work will continue to be done, but perhaps at fewer physical locations. The important work that these research centres do will continue.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to this issue this morning. I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Repentigny.

I said I was pleased. To clarify, I am pleased to be able to express my opinions, but I am not exactly thrilled with the content of the motion. I will explain why.

Once again, our colleagues in the Conservative Party are very good at identifying a real, serious and significant problem that is concerning to people back home and that is making life more difficult for our constituents, namely inflation at the grocery store. It is appalling.

However, I am not exactly thrilled with the proposed solutions, which are the same as usual. We are being asked to remove all taxes and anything that might prevent our oil industry friends from making money and polluting the planet as much as they want. We are told that this will solve everything, even though the past year has shown that this is not true. The federal consumer carbon tax has been removed in provinces other than Quebec. For about three years, the Conservatives went on and on about how the carbon tax had to be removed and how that would magically fix everything, and yet grocery prices have not gone down.

Unfortunately, I do not think they are going to go down. The focus needs to be on stopping the increases. In the meantime, we need to have buffers while we wait for wages to catch up with prices. The big issue we are seeing is that inflation, which was caused or triggered by the COVID‑19 pandemic in particular and also by global tensions, has meant that the cost of food has risen faster than people's incomes. That is why there is an imbalance.

In addition, the same thing happened with housing. Due to the scarcity of housing and the ability to telework, many people moved out to the regions. There are small villages in the regions where housing used to be more affordable. However, prices skyrocketed because everyone was moving all over the place. These are two factors that were very difficult to control during the pandemic.

I am not excusing the government, far from it. However, when people say that eliminating the industrial carbon tax will solve the problem, I am sorry, but that is not true. I am a little tired of these bogus solutions. I would like us to be constructive. Earlier, a Conservative member whose riding name I unfortunately did not write down rose to speak, and I was glad to hear her say things that I do not often hear from the Conservative Party. She suggested that we work together and show that we can be non-partisan and find solutions for our constituents. Yes, but let us propose real solutions.

When a party calls on all members to vote for a motion, it needs to put in a modicum of effort beforehand, talk to the other parties and not draft a motion containing falsehoods that we will not be able to condone, as the Conservatives know full well. Once again, we are debating a Conservative motion that identifies a real problem that people are experiencing, but instead of proposing concrete solutions, they present empty slogans so they can get sound bites, score political points and fundraise on social media. That is what Conservatives do all week long, but it is not what we are supposed to be doing here.

I would like us to raise the level of discourse a little and really look for solutions. To that end, I will try to be quick, although I do not have much speaking time, as usual.

First, the Conservatives say that “Canadians face the highest food inflation in the G7”. That was true in December 2025. I am pleased that there is something good in the motion. Perhaps the date should have been indicated. Historically, what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry said earlier is also true. We outperformed other countries during COVID-19, but that is no reason to do nothing. When a government tells me that it is worse elsewhere, I say that if things are bad here at home, I do not necessarily want them to be worse somewhere else. I want things to improve for the people here at home. Let us find solutions. That is what I am looking for.

Food bank use is up. That is also true. The bill contains some good things. That is why I am deeply frustrated to have to vote against the motion. It acknowledges real problems, and then it turns around and offers us solutions like eliminating the industrial carbon tax. Come on.

I do not know if we say this often enough in the House, but 60% of our oil industry is foreign-owned. In other words, when we grant this industry subsidies or tax exemptions, despite its huge profits, for problems that they will not even resolve, we are sending money outside the country. Shareholders are receiving dividends outside Canada. We need to be serious and constructive. The motion talks about the fuel standards and the food packaging tax. Can the Conservatives stop calling everything they do not like a “tax”?

When people say that an intelligent approach to minimizing single-use plastics whenever possible would be good for the planet, that is not a tax. Rejecting plastic straws is not a tax. Cardboard straws are not so bad. I do not think it costs industries very much to adapt to changes like that.

People bring up specific examples, such as how long fresh vegetables stay fresh. It is true that plastic packaging for fresh vegetables is still very important. It extends the shelf life of broccoli, cucumber, cauliflower and other vegetables by several days, keeping them fresh three or four times longer. If plastic packaging is suddenly banned and no substitutes are available, that will result in food waste and inflation.

They take that kind of things and say it all needs to go. Do members know what I mean? Can people stop generalizing? That is the main point I want to make.

There are things that need to be done in terms of food. I will not address the aspects of the motion that deal with carbon pricing. I think my colleague from Repentigny plans to talk about that anyway, since it is his area of expertise. Instead, I am going to talk about inflation. As I said, inflation has gone up and will go up again. General inflation is 2.5%, whereas food inflation is expected to be between 4% and 6% in 2026.

That is another response that I would prefer not to hear from the government anymore. During question period, we sometimes hear government members saying that inflation is under control and that it is 2.5%. That is true for general inflation, but we need to be careful. Sometimes that can be misleading. It is not true when it comes to food and housing. Those are the areas in which we need to act.

How do we do that? First, in the short term, we must quickly provide support to those who need it. Obviously, the lower a person's income compared to the average, the larger the share of their budget they will spend on food and housing. These are the people who need help, especially seniors on fixed pensions that are not sufficiently indexed.

We in the Bloc Québécois are leading this fight. Ever since I first became a member in this place, the Bloc Québécois has never stopped calling for a decent increase in OAS and an end to age discrimination. That would be one way to help people directly, and it could be done overnight. It would also be a very popular measure. That is what I would suggest. I think it should really be considered. These pensioners could then fill part of the labour shortage in our industries. The labour shortage is driving up costs, because people have to be paid more. It is a bit of a vicious circle. If pensioners were given a bigger clawback exemption and allowed to earn more than the current $5,000, they could work more without being penalized. The same applies to anyone else in life: Everyone likes to work, but it has to be worth their while. If someone works and it costs them money, it is less appealing.

For young people, down payment assistance programs could be set up for young homebuyers. As for food banks, they could receive direct support. It is not the ideal solution, and it is sad when a government does that, but this is an emergency. Transfers to the provinces should also be increased to make everything work better.

In addition, alongside all this, the Carney government has chosen to forgo revenue. It rescinded the tax on web giants. It cancelled the changes to the capital gains inclusion rate. It abandoned the countertariffs it had imposed. It scrapped the 15% minimum tax rate, which had achieved a broad consensus around the world. There are meaningful actions that could be taken.

In closing, I will talk about groceries. Earlier, I asked the parliamentary secretary a question about concentration in the grocery industry. I am familiar with the subject because I sat on the committee for years and took part in the studies on this issue. It is a real problem. When we asked the grocery chain representatives to provide us with their sales figures, they told us that that would not be possible because they were competing with each other. As for the parliamentary secretary's answer, I cannot say that he did not tell the truth. He said that the margins are unchanged. However, a profit of 2% of $200,000 is not the same amount of money as a profit of 2% of $50. Can we agree on that? It is a question of proportion.

Profits are increasing enormously, yet when we ask questions, we get no answers, particularly when we talk to suppliers, who are being mistreated. I am not going to get into the issue of the code of conduct, which is supposed to be in force and seems to be posing a lot of problems, but something needs to be done. For this reason, I think we need to look into the idea of having some kind of price-fixing observatory to monitor the grocery sector. Oligopolies are always harmful to ordinary people. It is not acceptable for these companies to rake in such huge profits while people are struggling to pay for their groceries.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

I would remind the hon. member that he must refer to the Prime Minister by his title, not by his name.

We will now proceed to questions and comments. The hon. member for Madawaska—Restigouche.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, in his introduction, my colleague mentioned that it is important for us to work together constructively and to set aside partisanship in order to find solutions that meet the public's needs. He also mentioned his dissatisfaction with the fact that our Conservative colleagues are seeking to roll back our environmental protection measures.

However, in my book, actions speak louder than words. Last fall, our colleagues from the Bloc Québécois had the opportunity to do something meaningful for the environment by voting in favour of Bill C-241, introduced by my colleague from Terrebonne, which seeks to establish a national strategy for flood forecasting. My Bloc colleagues voted against the bill, even though they had voted for a similar version of the same bill in 2024.

Is that because this is no longer important to them or because something in the political context has changed and is now causing them to be guided by partisanship to the detriment of the environment?

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I did not realize that I had said the Prime Minister's name earlier, so I apologize for that.

I always appreciate my colleague. He asked a very original question, because it is not often that I am accused of partisanship. I find it amusing, because he answered his own question. He spoke about a national strategy, yet Quebec is already handling these issues quite effectively, thanks very much.

Since I only had 10 minutes, I ran out of time, but in my speech, I talked about the importance of making adequate transfers to the provinces, including in health care, so that the provinces and Quebec can properly manage their areas of jurisdiction. It is a question of encroachment.

There are always nuances in voting. Whenever the hon. member has a question about a Bloc Québécois vote, I will be happy to clarify it for him.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there is a real problem in Canada because food prices are on the rise and continue to rise month after month. We are seeing price increases at the grocery store, and Canadians are complaining about it.

My question is this: Does my colleague not think that we should find the root of the problem and address the issue that is causing grocery prices to rise so quickly in Canada, when they are not rising as quickly in other G7 countries and around the world? The reality is that grocery prices are rising faster in Canada than elsewhere.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent and very interesting question. It was all good except the end, because that is not always true. I brought out some of the finer points about that in my speech earlier.

What I was trying to say is that we need to sincerely and seriously examine the root of the problem, as my colleague so rightly said. That is one of the suggestions that I made to the parliamentary secretary. We need to look at price fixing in the grocery sector by creating an observatory because this is an oligopoly that has far too much power.

We also need to continue with environmental protection measures because that also costs a lot of money. If my colleague would like, we can go together to talk to our produce growers who are dealing with drought one year and floods the next. The third year, their insurance payment for their crops is higher than all of their other payments and they are unable to make any more claims because, if they do, their insurance will go up again.

The goal is to provide proper support to farmers and not to cut funding to research centres. I am sure my colleague will agree with me on that.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I had a wonderful discussion with Canadian dairy farmers this morning. We talked about the whole supply management issue. Supply management is a wonderful way for Canadians to appreciate the whole issue of food security and food sovereignty. This is one of the reasons we have the Prime Minister and other members of the Liberal caucus speaking very positively on the whole issue of supply management. There was a motion that was brought forward by the Bloc. It is not very often that I agree with the Bloc, but on that particular motion, I was very agreeable.

Could the member provide his thoughts with regard to—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it must be a good day, because there are good people on the Hill. I appreciate my colleague's comments, and I am glad he likes our legislation. He may not like what I am about to say quite as much, but I suspect that, if the law had not been passed in June, the government would have already given away something, since it has given everything away to the U.S. government so far.

However, my colleague is right about the fundamentals. Supply management ensures basic stability across Quebec and food stability for our population. That has been my argument for over six years. Let us use that model and look at the agricultural sectors that are struggling. Perhaps we could incorporate certain elements without changing everything and we could look at how prices are set, because there is a large margin between the farmer and the grocery store and there are things going on that are not right. We would like to see that, so let us get on with it.

International Trade

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties and, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:

That, in relation to its study on trade diversification, six members of the Standing Committee on International Trade be authorized to travel to Brasilia, Brazil; and Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the winter/spring of 2026, during an adjournment period, and that the necessary staff accompany the Committee.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

All those opposed to the hon. member moving the motion will please say nay. It is agreed.

The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion—Food Affordability

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thought that yesterday was Groundhog Day, but it seems to be happening again today. Everyone is probably familiar with the movie where the same day repeats itself over and over again. Once again, we have a Conservative Party motion that, unfortunately, exploits the hardship of Canadians who are struggling to put food on the table to serve the interests of the Conservatives' beloved petrochemical, oil and gas industry.

The Conservatives have spent almost all of their opposition days in the last two Parliaments saying that carbon pricing is to blame for the rising cost of living and the rising cost of food, and now here they are again today spreading false and inaccurate information. Their failure to address the real root causes of the increase in grocery costs demonstrates a blatant lack of diligence and compassion. Not only are the Conservatives once again blaming the government for the meagre measures it introduced to fight climate change, most of which have already been shelved, but they are also calling for even more backpedalling on the environment and the oil and gas issue.

Based on this line of reasoning, now that the Liberals have essentially co-opted the Conservative agenda, caved to oil and gas companies on pretty much everything they want and abolished consumer carbon pricing, we would expect food prices to go down, but that has not happened. Carbon pricing is gone, and it has not happened. It has not happened because carbon pricing did not drive up food prices and the cost of living. The Conservatives are back at it, and this time they want to repeal a crucial regulation on industrial carbon pricing. Regardless of what my Conservative colleagues are saying today, we know that particular carbon price has no impact on food prices. The impact is too small to be measurable, according to the Canadian Climate Institute. The impact is almost nil.

The motion is a manifestation of the populism we have come to expect from the Conservative Party over the past few years. The Conservatives are touching on a real issue that people are angry and worried about. We too are worried about the rising cost of living, but meaningless slogans will not make things better. Giving people real, concrete solutions will.

The Conservative leader does not seem to have learned anything over the past year. His strategy basically involves continuing to demonize public policy, especially climate and environmental policy, of course, rather than putting forward real proposals that could help people deal with today's serious cost of living crisis. I would even go so far as to say that it is completely out of touch to manipulate households' financial concerns to advance the oil and gas agenda and further line the pockets of shareholders of oil and gas companies in Canada, which are mostly foreign-owned. These profits, not to mention the subsidies, even increase grocery bills. It does not help to tell lies or half-truths to those who are suffering right now, those who cannot afford to put enough food on the table and who have to choose between paying for their housing and paying for groceries.

I think it is important that we review the facts. It has been scientifically proven that if we abandon the fight against climate change, as the Conservatives are proposing and as the Liberals may want to do, food prices will only continue to rise. If we abandon the fight against climate change, food prices will definitely continue to rise. Let us think about how food production, our farmers and our agricultural producers are affected by wildfires, floods and droughts, not to mention other unpredictable weather conditions that are getting stronger, more frequent and even more alarming in scale. This is for real. We also need to think about the pests and diseases that come with climate change and contribute to rising food prices.

Let us look at Canada's Food Price Report 2025, which my Conservative colleagues often mention. That report explains that, in 2024, cocoa prices increased because of high temperatures and extreme weather conditions in West Africa, while orange juice prices spiked because floods and droughts damaged harvests in Brazil. These are examples of international imports that have risen in price and had an impact on the household expenses of Canadians, of our constituents.

In place of these products, we could develop other solutions to achieve greater food sovereignty, increase resilience in agriculture and stimulate, for example, greenhouse cultivation, processing and freezing. These are all solutions that would contribute to food sovereignty and greater resilience.

One of the real reasons for rising food prices is climate change. That is undeniable when we look at the effects of climate change on production everywhere across Canada, even in my Conservative colleagues' ridings. We can read the following in a study on the cost of climate change conducted by the the Institut de recherche en économie contemporaine: “Droughts were an important factor in the recent dramatic increase in crop insurance payments in Canada, which surged from $890 million in 2018 to $4.887 billion in 2022.” That is nearly $5 billion in crop insurance. The value of these payments increased more than fivefold in five years. Obviously, that has an impact on the cost of food.

In Canada, in practical terms, we are talking about droughts that have affected crop yields. In Saskatchewan, yields actually declined by 47% in 2021. According to Statistics Canada, “While activity was up in most sectors of the economy, those gains were entirely negated by the worst drought in nearly two decades”. That was about Saskatchewan, but Quebec was not spared either. In the Abitibi region, for example, hay producers received a record $6.8 million in compensation for the 2023 drought. That is more than triple the annual average. They had to bring in hay from the west because they were having a hard time producing it in Quebec, partly because of the drought conditions.

The government needs to develop a climate change adaptation strategy to protect against these crop problems, among other things. Moreover, this strategy should also be concrete and sustainable. That is not currently the case with the federal government's national adaptation strategy, which is underfunded and has been criticized by the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, among others.

Getting back to the Dalhousie University report, it states that wildfires in the west also affected transportation, such as rail lines, which has an impact on the cost of food.

If we refocus the debate, one real solution would be to make the industries, including the petrochemical, oil and gas industries, pay for their pollution, their impact on climate change and the extreme weather events they are causing. There are many other problems related to the oil and gas industry. An initial report by False Profits, conducted by economist Jim Stanford, showed that the spike in world oil prices in 2022 was the main factor behind the subsequent surge in inflation. The fact is that fossil fuels cause inflation and have a major impact on people's cost of living. Soaring oil prices caused by financial speculation are responsible for a significant portion of inflation and, according to this report, even cost Canadians nearly $200 billion between 2022 and 2025. That is $12,000 per household.

We in the Bloc Québécois believe that the rising cost of living in Canada, and also in Quebec, is a major problem that is causing people to suffer. We need to address this issue, but to do so, we need to tackle its root causes, and climate action is not currently on the agenda. This is a major problem. We are talking about inaction. The situation is serious, and doing less will only make the problem worse. Unfortunately, that is what my Conservative colleagues are proposing.

Obviously, we will be voting against the motion.

[Carlos Leitão, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I must say that I agree overall with what our colleague just said. Climate change has a very significant impact on the price of food. We have no intention of removing industrial carbon pricing.

Could my colleague talk a bit about the connection, if there even is one, between industrial carbon pricing and food prices?

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always odd to hear the Liberals say that they feel they are still dedicated to fighting climate change after all the backtracking we have seen and after they basically abandoned the climate plan that was put in place in the previous Parliament.

When it comes to carbon pricing, yes, we are concerned. Negotiations are currently under way with Alberta, and we know that Alberta is backtracking on carbon pricing. The federal government should have stepped in to ensure that the price on carbon is the same across Canada, but it did not. What is more, it could water down carbon pricing even further.

To get back to the question, studies clearly show that industrial carbon pricing has no impact on the increase in the cost of living and food prices. The impact is close to zero. Unfortunately, my Conservative colleagues are using disinformation when they say that carbon pricing has a major impact on the cost of food.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I find it a bit rich that the member is more than willing to demonize one source as biased yet claim the Canadian Climate Institute as gospel and as a reliable source, since it is funded solely by the government.

Could the member comment on the relationship between the cost of energy and poverty, globally? It has been demonstrated by innumerable sources that higher costs of energy in every form are directly related to increased poverty and the cost of living.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to carbon pricing, the Canadian Climate Institute has put data on the table. It is very, very clear. These are scientific facts, and I would love to see studies that prove otherwise from our Conservative colleagues, who claim that industrial carbon pricing has an impact on food prices. That is not the case. Unfortunately, once again, this is part of their populism and demagoguery.

That being said, obviously the cost of energy is a major issue. It costs Quebec more than $10 billion a year to import oil and gas. We are sending that money outside Quebec, when we could be using it to electrify transportation, buildings, industries and SMEs. If we hung onto that money, we would not be vulnerable to foreign companies whose shareholders are mostly based in the United States. I am talking about the oil and gas companies.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is rather deplorable to watch what the Conservatives are doing. Every time they have an opposition day, every time they have the opportunity to contribute something to the debates in the House and to make everyone in Parliament take a position on an issue, they do the same thing. They always talk about the carbon tax, pipelines or oil and gas. It seems like they cannot talk about anything else.

I would like to know if my colleague thinks there are other constructive issues we could have discussed in order to advance solutions to the problems that ordinary people in this country are facing.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, my Conservative colleagues do not want to talk about it, but the fight against climate change still matters. Climate change and the climate crisis did not go away when the newly elected President of the United States took office and implemented his trade and tariff policies. We still have a crisis. How can we develop the economy without increasing oil and gas production, which is basically what caused climate change in the first place?

We would have liked to talk about ways to fight climate change and inequality. We could have explored ways to address the cost of living problem through climate actions that are fair and equitable for all Canadians. Unfortunately, our Conservative colleagues want to abandon the fight against climate change, but the problem will not go away. The Bloc Québécois wants to work on this problem and on addressing inequality.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from OGGO, the member for Windsor West.

Canadians are once again finding themselves in a Liberal-caused food inflation crisis. We have the highest food inflation rate in the G7. The government repeatedly promised and continues to promise that it will have the fastest-growing economy in the G7. Unfortunately, what it has delivered to Canadians is the fastest-growing food inflation rate in the G7.

The Liberals spend so much time in the House gaslighting Canadians and trying to convince them that it is a new government, not the same government whose policies for 10 years have led to the highest food costs in the G7. They work tirelessly to have Canadians forget that, almost as much as they work to have Canadians forget that the Prime Minister actually stood in the House and said that he should be judged by the price of food in the grocery stores. Well, Canadians have judged him, and the verdict is in: He has failed on that point.

There are 2.2 million Canadians lining up at food banks every month. Twenty per cent of them are reportedly fully employed. Imagine that: fully employed and still having to go to a food bank to feed one's family. Thirty per cent of the people served by food banks are children.

In Edmonton we have the Veterans Association Food Bank, which serves veterans and former frontline RCMP and Coast Guard members, etc. Let us think about that: A country this wealthy, under the Liberals, requires veterans to seek help at a food bank.

Canada is a country so wealthy that the Liberals have enough money to spread around to give money to Vietnam for gender rights, for the government to pay for sex shows in Germany, and for the government to do a report, paid for by DND, on how space exploration is racist and exploitative. The government spent millions of dollars to study intersectional democratic spaces in Nepal, and it actually gave tens of millions of dollars in corporate welfare to a large international company that funds ISIS terrorists in Syria.

The government has all that money, yet 2.2 million Canadians are lining up at food banks. The number has doubled in the last 10 years. In Edmonton, food bank usage is at its highest point in history, doubling in the last five years. It is higher than in the early 1990s, when there was about 10% unemployment in Edmonton. It is higher than in the early 1980s, when there were 18% to 19% interest rates.

In response to the Liberal-created food inflation crisis, the Liberals reached into their grab bag and pulled out and recycled a Trudeau era policy of bumping up the GST credit. More money in Canadians' pockets is fantastic. I would prefer it to come through tax breaks, but I would support anything that puts more money into Canadians' pockets. However, I wish the government had spent a bit more time and made the benefit more targeted. Just like with the COVID payments, the government threw out the money, vote-buying in some cases, without any oversight or any plan to target the people most in need.

In this program put forward by the Liberals, if someone is married with two kids, with mom and dad both working full-time at about minimum wage in Ontario, they would earn too much to get the added top-up to help out with food inflation. If they have three kids, and with mom and dad both working and earning around $17 an hour, they would not qualify. With four kids, and with mom and dad working and each making $17.80 an hour, they would not qualify under the program.

The people who would benefit are single and have incomes below the threshold. About one-third of the 12 million people the Liberals say they would be helping are under the age of 30 and are single. Therefore, if the kids are living at home and going to university, they would qualify, but if someone is living in a cramped apartment with three kids, with mom and dad making $17.80 an hour, they would not qualify.

We are not arguing about whether the help is needed, but the government should have made it more targeted toward the people needing help. About 10% of Canadians do not do their taxes, most of whom are low-income earners. If someone does not do their taxes, they would not get the help. If someone has low income and has not done their 2024 taxes, they would not get the help. If someone was employed in 2024 and doing very well but got laid off and had no income in 2025 up until now, they would get nothing. The issue is not so much about the help needed for people; the government should have been smart about it and made it more targeted to help Canadians.

Furthermore, again, it is all borrowed money. It is about an extra $12 billion that would be added to our deficit. In the five years the program would run, it would cost $1.4 billion in added interest payments. This comes from the Parliamentary Budget Officer. That $1.4 billion was not budgeted, so where would the government find the money? It would either cut other services or tax Canadians more in the future.

The program the government has introduced would run for five years. That is basically an admission of failure from the Liberal government that, for five more years, Canadians are going to be in a food inflation crisis.

Instead of five more years of Liberal high costs on food, there are things we can do to help Canadians right now, and that is what we are proposing. We could eliminate the industrial carbon tax, which affects the cost of fertilizer and the cost of food processing. We could get rid of the fuel standard tax. Currently it is 7¢ a litre, and it is going to go up to 17¢ a litre. That 17¢ a litre would come into effect at the same time as the proposed program would sunset. We are going to have higher fuel costs at the same time as the rebate would end.

The government needs to end its insane ideological war on plastics. The plastic ban is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars; it was actually published in the Gazette. The government's own numbers say $1.3 billion. The Canadian Produce Marketing Association says that the Liberals' zero-plastics crusade will cost consumers $3.4 billion and lead to about an extra half-million tonnes of spoiled food, despite the fact that 99% of plastics safely end up in landfills. Instead of an ideological attack on plastics, the government should just end the hidden tax altogether.

It is the same with the industrial carbon tax. The government members will sit here and say it does not exist, that it does not add to food costs. The government would have people believe that input costs somehow never make it through the supply chain and cost farmers more, cost truckers more, cost grocery stores more and cost Canadians more.

I often refer to a study from the Royal Bank of Scotland that I read years ago. It is a report on the flow-through of energy taxes, much like the industrial carbon tax or the previous carbon tax, saying that 100% of energy taxes flow through to the consumer. Why I was reading something from the Royal Bank of Scotland is a different story, but the fact is that every added cost to farmers, to truckers and to grocery stores ends up in the price to consumers.

Every single time we change packaging rules, it adds costs, like the billions of dollars mentioned, which end up coming out of the pockets of Canadians in the form of higher food costs. Every time we add costs for transportation or for energy, it ends up coming out of the pockets of Canadians. We are in a food inflation crisis caused by the policies of the government. The government needs to take practical steps to end its ideological attack on Canadians and to focus on immediate, pragmatic steps to end the food inflation crisis now, next year and five years from now.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have a flash warning: Conservative ideas just do not work. Quite frankly, I remember how many hundreds of speeches I heard from the Conservatives 14 months ago in which they said that if we get rid of the carbon tax, there will not be any inflation. People can look it up. There are dozens if not hundreds of speeches like that.

We have a new Prime Minister and a new government, and we got rid of the carbon tax. Is it a coincidence that food prices did not go down? We got rid of the carbon tax to give Canadians more disposable income. That is what the grocery benefit is about, the one the Conservatives supposedly voted for yesterday.

Why should Canadians give any credibility to Conservative policy? It turns out to be a disaster all the time.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite has a rare talent for speaking at length without disturbing the facts. Imagine what our food inflation would be right now with the carbon tax added in. It is Liberal policies that are driving up the food costs. The U.S., Japan and all the other members of the G7 are facing the same issues we are around climate change and everything else, yet somehow only the country led by the Liberal government, the same tired Liberal government of 10 years with the same tired recycled failed policies, has the highest food cost inflation.

Those are the facts. The member should understand that by now.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pass on my regards to my colleague.

I would like to know whether he has considered the impact that the proposed measures will have on pollution and climate change, or the impact that climate change, floods, forest fires and other events have on farmers and food prices.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the Bloc asked a couple of things: one about climate, and one about plastics and pollution. Of all our plastics, 99% end up safely in landfills. A very negligible amount ends up as litter, so that is something of a non-starter.

Climate change is a global issue. The Bloc, the Liberals and the NDP would have us believe that climate stops at our border and that putting a 17¢ tax on gasoline would somehow change the weather around the world. The reality is that climate change is a world issue, caused as much by China and India. The best thing we can do for climate change is build pipelines to the west coast to get natural gas and other Canadian energy to China and India to get them off coal and onto cleaner-burning Canadian energy.