moved:
That, given that,
(i) gas prices have soared upwards,
(ii) Canadians now pay almost 20 per cent more at the pumps than Americans due to high Liberal taxes,
the House call on the government to adopt the Conservative plan to save Canadians 25 cents-a-litre by removing federal taxes on gas and diesel for the rest of 2026, including:
(a) removing the Fuel Excise Tax for the remainder of 2026, which costs Canadians 10 cents-a-litre;
(b) removing the GST on gasoline and diesel for the remainder of 2026, which costs Canadians 8 cents-a-litre;
(c) permanently removing the Fuel Standards tax, which costs Canadians 7 cents-a-litre; and
(d) permanently removing the industrial carbon tax, which will rise to $170 a tonne, and is projected to shrink the economy by 1.3 per cent and lead to 50,000 job losses.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to be splitting my time with the member for York—Durham.
The great Winston Churchill once said, “The idea that a nation can tax itself into prosperity is one of the crudest delusions which has ever fuddled the human mind.” After more than 10 years of the Liberal government, life has become miserable for Canadians, more unaffordable and unsafe than ever in the history of this country. Families are struggling just to get by, and they cannot afford even the basic necessities. They are just looking for a break.
Recently, the Liberal Prime Minister said that he is trying to find ways to save on gas. Well, we presented an idea. We put the solution in front of him: Remove all federal fuel taxes temporarily for Canadians, to save them money at the pump. From what I understand, the Prime Minister did what a typical Liberal would do and just recently took our idea, but he did not take the whole idea. He took only parts of the idea. Our goal was to save on the GST, the excise tax and, of course, the Liberals' hidden carbon tax repackaged as the clean fuel standard, which will go up. This would have saved Canadians 25¢ per litre at the pump.
We have to look at what is going on right now. Of course there are external factors that all countries are facing. Everyone is facing those same factors, but we have to look at why Canadians are paying, at a minimum, 20¢ per litre more than Americans are for fuel. The difference is the federal fuel taxes, so we put this solution in front of the Liberals, but, again, they did not implement it fully. Canadians would have saved 25¢ per litre for gas at the pump. Not just everyday Canadians would save money. It would help our farmers. It would help our transporters. It would help in many different ways.
It could also help bring down the cost of food. We know that after 10 years under the Liberals, Canadians are faced with the highest food inflation in the entire G7. Canadians have the highest household debt in the entire G7. We know that Canadians are struggling, because 2.2 million Canadians going to a food bank every single month is not a statistic that anyone should brag about. The cost of food is out of control in this country, and the solutions Conservatives are proposing would help to lower the cost of food and of everyday life for Canadians. Overall, they would also save Canadians $1,200 on gas just this year. That is a significant savings.
Even when people go to the grocery store, they can feel the difference when they are there. Not that long ago, people could get by for a week on 100 dollars' worth of groceries. One hundred dollars gets them nowhere these days under the Liberals, because they made the cost of food so expensive. Their industrial carbon tax, their clean fuel standard, which they refuse to drop, is making life more expensive. It makes food more expensive. That is why there is so much food insecurity.
In my riding of Calgary East, the Salvation Army does amazing work. It just reported a 500% increase in the usage of its food security program. That 500% increase is because the cost of food keeps going up. These are not numbers or statistics about which anyone should say, “Is that really a first world country where 2.2 million Canadians are going to a food bank every single month?”
Canadians are overtaxed. In fact, Canadians pay more in taxes than they do for food, shelter and clothing, in other words necessities, combined. That is the result of overspending, overprinting money and flooding the market with cheap cash. Who benefits from that? It is always Liberal insiders. For example, there is the $90-billion boondoggle called the Alto high-speed rail project. The finance minister has a supposed conflict of interest in that too, and it would be wealthy Liberal insiders who would get contracts and money from those contracts. They are the only ones who would get rewarded. Who gets left with the bill? It is Canadians. Everyday Canadians have to face the reality of the corrupt Liberal government.
The clean fuel standard is also a tax on everything. As I said before, the farmers who are growing our food, the shippers who are transporting our food, and even the people who are storing the food all get hit with either the clean fuel standard or the industrial carbon tax, or both. Sometimes this is in hidden ways, but these costs do not stay just with the farmers and the shippers. They actually get put into the cost of the food at the end of the day. Canadians who are buying the food and are seeing food costs out of control are the ones who have to pay these costs, and it is always Liberal insiders who get to benefit from these costs.
The Liberals do not have any control over what they are doing with Canadians' finances. In fact we thought Justin Trudeau was Canada's worst money manager, but the Prime Minister said, “Hold my champagne. I can do much worse.” He doubled Justin Trudeau's deficit, if we can believe that. It is something we thought no one could do. It was item number one once he became Prime Minister.
Removing the GST, the excise tax and the carbon tax 2.0, the clean fuel standard, would help the truckers and the farmers. It would help the cost of food go down. That is why Conservatives are proposing this: We know that Canadians are struggling with the cost of food. We all hear it in our ridings from moms who have to choose between less nutritious food or no food that week. Some of them are starving, just so their kids can eat. These are the choices Canadians are having to make. Seniors are having to make these choices too. There are people in food bank lines who had never used a food bank in their life. They used to proudly volunteer at the food banks, and now they are standing in line for food.
That is the result of the Liberal government. It is increasing costs, and there is no looking back for the Liberals. They will increase the industrial carbon tax and will increase the clean fuel standard, and this is only going to make things more expensive for Canadians.
The Liberals will argue that it might leave a hole in their budget. We are surprised that they would even care about that, with all the money they print and spend. However, if we implemented the removal of the fuel taxes federally, there would be more savings for Canadians and less of a downfall in how much the government would collect in revenues. This would be a win-win for everybody. Most importantly, it would be a win for those families that are struggling after 10 years of Liberal government.
We need to get our economy up and running again. We need to make Canada what it used to be, a safe and affordable country, which after 10 years under Liberal governments it has not been. It has become a joke around the world. We need to get our resources to market. We need to get rid of the industrial carbon tax and remove Bill C-69 so we can get projects built in this country.
We need to remove Bill C-48, the tanker ban, which does not let our product leave the west coast for Asian markets. We need to get rid of the clean fuel standard and every single one of the red tape policies that have stopped anything from getting built in this country. We need to get our country back on track so we can be sovereign, independent and an energy superpower once again. That is something only the Conservatives would do.