Mr. Speaker, before I start, I wanted to say that I am going to split my time with my good friend from Oxford, who is literally always behind my back or on my back, but he is a good guy. All jokes aside, I will begin my speech.
We are here today to speak about one of the most expensive economic updates, outside of COVID, in Canadian history. It was more of an update, not a mini-budget, as we saw, and the Prime Minister ran over and over again on the promise that it would not be more of the same. He promised that he would be different from other Liberals or the ones before him, even though he was the one advising them. He was right. He is not the same; he is even worse.
Ever since he became Prime Minister, Canadians' lives have gotten more expensive and more unsafe than they have ever been before. The Prime Minister ran on saying that he would be more prudent and more disciplined when it comes to spending, but he took the gold medal with his first budget for the most expensive and biggest deficit outside of COVID in Canadian history. Then he dropped this update in the spring economic statement, and he gave himself a silver medal for the second-biggest deficit in Canadian history outside of COVID. Canadians' lives got worse.
He said that he would bring back affordability and that he was going to be the guy who could do it. He also said that he could deal with President Donald Trump. Like every other Liberal before him, none of those promises were kept and they will never be kept. In fact, he is the same old costly, broken promises Liberal. This is the same Prime Minister who stood up in the House and said that affordability is the best it has been in a decade. This is the same guy who raised the cost of living by implementing and making sure to keep the industrial carbon tax, which will go up. Under him, food price inflation keeps going up. The cost of food is impossible for people to afford today, which is what leads to 2.2 million Canadians going to a food bank in a single month. Instead of reducing the food bank lines, he increased them. Instead of reducing the cost of food, he increased it.
Liberal taxes and Liberal deficits are what they do and what they have done over the last 11 years. There is no hope in sight that these are going to get any better because they are obsessed with the carbon tax. First, it was the consumer carbon tax that they were obsessed with and now we have the industrial carbon tax and the other carbon tax, which they call the clean fuel standard. All these taxes have made life more and more expensive for Canadians.
The finance minister said that he was going to haul in all the grocery store CEOs back in 2023 and that he was going to tell them what was on his mind and make sure that food prices came down by Thanksgiving 2023. We are heading toward Thanksgiving 2026, and food prices, taxes, costs, the debt and deficits have only gone up. Everything is put on the national credit card, which is why we call it the credit card budget. It is very costly to Canadians because they are the ones who have to foot the bill.
Everyone can remember back in the day when we had a responsible, disciplined Conservative government. Canadians could go to the grocery store and could have one income earner in the home. They could afford groceries and housing. They could get a week's worth of groceries for around $100 to $150, which today in the grocery store does not go very far.
Not only have the Liberals driven out $1 trillion of investment, but they have made it impossible for anyone to invest in Canada, which is why we do not see much competition here. They have put up so much red tape and so many barriers that companies do not want to come here. We all know that in a good free market, competition is a good thing; it drives down the cost of goods. With high Liberal taxes and the high burden of red tape and bureaucracy, companies do not want to invest here, which is why $1 trillion of good Canadian investment, including jobs and everything else, went to the U.S. It is easier to invest there and there is a rate of return that people can see. There is profit there.
This finance minister said he would bring down the cost of food. Absolutely nothing has gone down in cost. In fact, things have only gotten more and more expensive for Canadians. Canada's Food Price Report states that prices are expected to rise 4% to 6%. An average Canadian family of four will pay $17,000 for groceries this year, which is $1,000 more than they paid last year. This is what Liberal taxes do to Canadians and to the goods that we buy.
TD Economics states that grocery prices are over 30% higher than in 2019. In 2025, 9.8 million people lived in food-insecure households and those households included 2.4 million children. This is the highest in Canadian history. This is what high Liberal taxes do. This is what out-of-control deficits do and what debt does to Canadians because they have to foot the bill. It gives them less because when the Liberals increase housing costs and when they increase the cost of everything else, they raise taxes. Now, an average family pays more in taxes than it does in food, shelter and clothing combined. Those are necessities and Canadians have to pay more taxes now because of the current Liberal government. There is no end in sight. As I said before, this update would give the second-highest deficit in Canadian history outside of COVID. It is nothing to brag about. There is no good news in there for Canadians.
We proposed solutions. The finance minister recently said on TV that the Liberals have done enough for Canadians regarding affordability, and he is absolutely wrong. They could have done more. When these guys took 10¢ off in the excise tax on fuel, we said, “That is not far enough.” We proposed to take off 25¢. That would be taking off the GST and taking off the carbon tax, which the Liberals call the clean fuel standard. That would have saved Canadians 25¢ per litre, or $1,200 just this year. That would be real savings as opposed to the Liberals' cut, which is not even $100 of savings for an average family. Now, when summer is about to come, these savings would be realized. People could use that money. They could put their kids into sports. They could put savings away. However, the Liberals will never go far enough to help Canadians. They do just a bit and then they brag about it and say that people should be grateful for it. They could have done a lot more.
While I am on this topic, it is important for us to address what else we could have done. The Liberals could have gotten rid of their “no new pipelines“ bill, Bill C-69. They could have gotten rid of the tanker ban, Bill C-48. They could have gotten rid of the industrial carbon tax. This not only would help get more built here, with jobs in the economy. It would actually help unity in this country. People are more divided than ever under these Liberals today.
We want nothing more on this side than to have unity in this country once again. The Liberals have done the best job they could to separate people by every single demographic possible, whether by regions, industries or skin colour. That is what these Liberals are known for. They like to keep people divided so that they do not get together and they do not vote against them. However, the Conservatives will always have solutions.
Regarding this sovereign wealth fund that the Liberals would create, wealth funds are created with wealth. They are created with assets. They are created with surpluses or with resource revenues. However, these guys decided to do it with debt. Who is going to be responsible for all that? Once again, it is going to be Canadian taxpayers.
We need to end this ridiculousness. We need to get rid of these antidevelopment laws. We need to make sure we start developing here at home so that we are strong here and strong abroad. We need to make sure we bring Canadians together, not tear them apart. This economic update would do none of that. It would keep people divided more than ever. It would make people poorer. It would make taxes go up. It would make costs go up. It would make the debt go up. That would do nothing for Canadians. We would do the exact opposite to bring this country together and give back the affordability and the safety that Canadians deserve in this country once again.