Mr. Speaker, because he is so bad with geography, he just received a demotion.
With the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, with the price of oil at $100 a barrel and the price at the pump at $1.38, and I am not talking about today; I am talking about 2014. During the Harper years, global oil prices were higher than they are today, and there were wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, but the price at the pump was 40¢ a litre lower than it is today.
There is no doubt that the price Canadians pay at the pump is indeed influenced by global conditions. However, that does not explain the current situation, because the conditions were exactly the same in 2014. Oil prices were actually higher than they are today and the price at the pump was 40¢ a litre lower than it is today. That is about 25% less. There must be other factors at play. These are not global factors. They are Liberal factors.
What Liberal factors are affecting the price of gas?
First of all, taxes are going up faster. There is a new carbon tax, renamed the clean fuel standard, which already adds another seven cents a litre and applies more broadly than the previous Liberal carbon tax. There are no exemptions for farmers, fishers or other food producers.
Second, the GST rises every time the price of oil goes up, because it is a percentage-based tax.
Lastly, we have a weak dollar. The Liberal Prime Minister holds himself up as a brilliant economist, but ever since he took office, the dollar has been extremely weak, even as the value of the main resources we have here has gone up. Our dollar is worth 72¢ to 73¢ U.S. When our dollar is weak, we pay more for the goods we buy on the world market. When our dollar is weaker than the U.S. dollar, we pay more for products priced in U.S. dollars.
How did we get here?
First, the taxes that the government charges on gas raise the price people pay at the pump. Anti-development laws are preventing us from developing our resources, leading us to have the second-longest waiting period for mining approvals, for example. These laws are reducing the number of dollars that foreigners have to spend to be able to buy our goods. This makes our dollar weak, which in turn makes our purchasing power very weak. At the pump and at the grocery store, Canadians are paying for the Liberal government's “weak dollar” policies, which have not changed since this Prime Minister has been in power. He is following the same policies as Justin Trudeau, the same policies he advised on five years ago, the same policies that he promoted as a member of an anti-oil banking alliance. Canadians are paying the price with a higher cost of living that just keeps going up month after month.
The Conservatives are proposing concrete measures to make life more affordable. We propose eliminating all fuel taxes for the whole year, which will save Canadians 25¢ per litre, $20 per fill and $1,200 by the end of the year. We are calling on the Liberal government to scrap its taxes and leave more money in Canadians' pockets.
How are we going to pay for it? We will cut red tape, which has ballooned by 7% a year. We will cut back on consultants, because the Liberals spend $20 billion in that area—twice what was spent in Stephen Harper's final years. We will cut back on corporate welfare and the big cheques the Liberals hand out to large corporations that they have ties with and that have good lobbyists. We are going to cut foreign aid, because if we cannot pay the bills here in Canada, we do not have money to send overseas. We are going to cut back on waste and fraud, the fraudulent money we give to fake refugees. Just today, the Parliamentary Budget Officer revealed that the government is pouring billions of dollars into rejected refugees, not actual refugees. These are five examples of things we can eliminate to reduce the cost of living at the pump without increasing the Liberal deficit.
Canadians are paying too much because we have a government that spends too much. An affordable government will give us an affordable life. That is what a positive solution to fulfill Canada's promise looks like: Working hard leads to a good life, an affordable life where people can provide for their children and have the means to enrich their life.
Let me just recap the global situation. There are wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, we have an oil price around $100 a barrel and the price at the pump is $1.38. I am not talking about now. I am talking about 2014. Former prime minister Stephen Harper was in power and wars were raging in the Middle East, in both Syria and Iraq. The Russians had just invaded Crimea and the global oil price was $100 a barrel, $10 higher than it is today, and yet the price of gas at the pump was 40¢ a litre cheaper than it is today.
What explains the difference? Let us go further. In the United States right now, south of the border, Americans are paying, in Canadian dollars and in litres, 17¢ a litre less than Canadians. They have the same global oil price and the same global factors like the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and yet it is 17¢ a litre cheaper south of the border. Why? Sure, there are global effects that have influenced prices lately, but the bigger and longer-term costs are the Liberal government effects.
One, it continues to impose a newly renamed and rebranded carbon tax, this time seven cents a litre rising to 17¢, but a broader tax that, unlike the earlier one, does not exempt farmers, fishers or other food producers. Two, the GST rises on the cost of a litre of gas as that cost goes up because it is a percentage-based tax. Three, we have an extremely weak dollar, and this is very unusual. Normally, when the world has high oil prices, Canada has a strong dollar because we have so much oil to sell on the world market. However, because the share of our economy made up of our oil exports is down, the link between oil prices and Canadian dollars is reduced, which removes the protection that consumers had from global shocks 10 years ago. Now, with a weak dollar and everything priced in U.S. dollars, globally priced commodities like oil and gas become far more expensive in Canadian dollars. A weak dollar means weakened purchasing power. Almost every foodstuff has either a North American or a global price. When we have a weak Canadian dollar, the ability of Canadian consumers to buy those goods is also weakened. A weak dollar means higher prices for Canadians.
It is amazing that the Liberal Prime Minister, who has been wrong on every single economic issue of the last decade, has now delivered us a weak monetary base in this country. By printing cash and continuing to block resources, he has given us a weak dollar, which is incredible, because that was supposed to be his incredible forte. However, if we look back, he has been wrong on every single economic issue of the last decade: wrong on the carbon tax, wrong to oppose oil and gas, wrong to oppose the pipeline to the Pacific and wrong to support money printing during inflation. He is wrong again today by continuing to impose taxes on our gas.
Conservatives have a motion with a very simple and obvious solution, which is to take all taxes off all gas for all of the year to save consumers 25¢ a litre, 20 bucks a fill-up, which is $1,200 by Christmas. Let us lower the cost at the pump to re-energize our economy, move the parts that make up our economy more quickly, create jobs, relieve families and unleash the power of our economy to restore the promise to our people.