Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to take to my feet today to ask for a more substantive answer to a question I asked in question period about a month ago.
I asked the Liberal finance minister if he should be held to his own words. I remember back in 2023 that minister had said he would have grocery prices under control by Thanksgiving 2023. Those are not the only comments we have heard about grocery prices over the last few years from the Liberal government members. We also heard the Prime Minister tell all Canadians that he should be judged by the prices they see at the grocery store. I think it is fair to hold people accountable to their own words. Even my kids know they are responsible for the words that come out of their mouths. I would expect the same from these Liberals when they say something.
I would also ask about the fact that this Prime Minister was elected on a promise to Canadians that he would have a trade deal done with Donald Trump in the United States by July 1, 2025. That has long since passed, so I would ask the Canadian public to hold the Liberals accountable to the words they have actually spoken and the promises they have committed to.
We have seen these Liberals cheerlead and pat themselves on the back because they are giving out tariff relief. If they had kept their word and gotten a trade deal with the U.S.A. and handled Donald Trump, as the Prime Minister said on the campaign trail, they would not have to be handing out tariff relief to companies. They would be able to make their own money, trade, do what they do best and make great Canadian products and sell them from coast to coast, to our neighbours to the south and around the world.
I would like an answer on why the Liberals keep cheering for themselves when they have failed at every measurable thing they have committed to. They committed to lowering grocery prices. They failed. They committed to getting a trade deal done with the United States. They failed. They committed to child care. I know there is going to be an answer on this from whoever is going to answer over there that they do have child care, but, right now, the child care program has failed miserably. They promised 250,000 new spaces by the end of March. They are at 155,000 spaces, which is 62% of what they promised. Once again, the promise was made, but the promise was not kept by these Liberals. It is really a lie of the left. They commit to things, but they never follow through.
We see the Desjardins report, which says, “the share of respondents mentioning the lack of available childcare spaces or long waitlists rose sharply over this period, from 1 in 15 [in 2019] to...1 in 5 [now].” It is harder and harder for parents to find child care spaces because the private ones could not compete. We saw this in the GTA also. Before the child care program, child care spaces were rising from 5% to 7% a year. Now, during some years, we have seen decreases in child care spaces. It is an abject failure of a program that we had questions about from the start, and parents are being burdened by the failures of the government. Whether it be child care spaces or food prices, it is a fail. Trade deals with the U.S.A. are a fail.
Is there anything the government has succeeded at? Can it show us any segment of the Canadian population that is better off now than before the Liberals' last 10 terrible years of government?