Debates of Sept. 22nd, 2026

Canadian Fuel Affordability Act

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated my colleague's comments, but I disagree with a great deal of them. Fundamentally, they are rooted in a story of Canada that is not remotely accurate. Our deficits and debts are among the best in the G7. There is so much work to do, but so much work has already occurred. Rents are down, housing prices are down and we are pushing forward on the affordability agenda with the decision we will hopefully be making at the end of this debate.

I would like to talk about farmers. The member mentioned farmers, and I think it is very important that we do so.

So much of what we talk about did not impact farmers, at least not the way that it did citizens in cities. They had purple gas. They were not paying the excise taxes at 13¢ provincially. It was four cents in my home province. It was four cents federally. Farming activity is not subject to the industrial carbon tax. Of course, as a business, a farm is not really paying GST in that sense. That is an input credit.

Diesel is an expensive input right now, and I want to hear the member's thoughts on what we can do to support farmers in that sense.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we can support farmers by extending any support we can for input costs. The member says that farmers do not pay the industrial carbon tax. They do, actually, indirectly, because fertilizer and other industrial goods that are inputs into the manufacture of food and the growing of food bear those costs. When the fertilizer manufacturer pays the industrial carbon tax, who does the member think he charges that to? Who does he think that is passed on to? It is the farmer who buys the fertilizer. Obviously farmers are bearing that burden, and that comes through the supply chain into the cost of groceries, which we have seen explode in this country.

[Ned Kuruc, Conservative, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's community knows that he is fighting for them and trying to save them money along the way. We are here to save Canadians money. We are proposing to cut all of the fuel tax, but what other ideas does he have to save his community money and all Canadians money in these turbulent economic times?

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the one thing we have proposed, at least with respect to this debate tonight, is to broaden the scope of this relief for Canadians, for example by including the clean fuel regulations, which add 16¢ per litre on diesel and 17¢ per litre on gasoline. That is more than the entire relief being offered by the government. Why will the Liberals not include that?

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has mentioned that this is an important time to cut costs for Canadians, and I have a simple question: Will he be supporting this bill to do so?

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, any bill that the government brings forward that cuts tax for average Canadians, I will support.

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

Mr. Speaker, this evening, I want to recognize that we are working together to pass this bill. This is a good example of what we can accomplish when we work together, something that we are not used to seeing from the Conservative opposition. I would therefore like to know whether this is a sign of things to come in this fall parliamentary session.

Will the Conservatives finally understand that Canadians expect us to work together to help them deal with the cost of living? Will the Conservatives now support the various measures that we are putting in place? Is what we are seeing today a shift in the Conservatives' stance?

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, obviously, if the government brings forward good ideas that help Canadians, it will find support in the opposition. If it brings forward bad proposals that hurt Canadians or hurt our economy, it will find opposition. It would make it a lot easier to work with the government if every time we proposed an idea, members did not get up and say that they will not take lessons from the Conservatives or that it is a bad idea, just as they did with this. We proposed this in May of this year. Every one of them stood up and voted against it, and now they are bringing it forward. When they talk about collaboration, it goes both ways.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of my hard-driving constituents in the expansive riding of Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke to speak to Bill C-38, an act to amend the Excise Tax.

Yesterday, the finance minister told the House that the Liberals would take no lessons from the Conservatives. Today, class is in session, and the lesson plan is lower taxes. Conservatives have been calling for gas tax relief for months, while Liberals enjoyed vacations in Tuscany. They left the decision to extend the gas tax holiday until the last minute in an effort to maximize uncertainty.

The Liberal decision to end this tax break in the middle of winter is perplexing. The Prime Minister has claimed he speaks to the United States President regularly. Does the Prime Minister have secret knowledge about when the conflict over the Strait of Hormuz will end? Based on the legislation before us, it appears the Liberals think the oil shipments through the strait will be at 50% of pre-war levels by January 31, and the entire strait will be open by the end of March. Of course, the Liberals have no idea when the conflict will end. The government wants to provide as little relief as it can get away with. Hiking the tax by 50% on February 1 is its way of boiling the frog slowly.

It takes a certain level of Liberal arrogance to call a bill that schedules tax hikes the Canadian fuel affordability act. This is all part of a plan with the Liberals. They call the bill, which would hike taxes, affordability. They call inflationary spending affordability. They call doubling the deficit fiscally responsible.

Despite their elbows up rhetoric, the Prime Minister is adopting the exact same form of state-led capitalism we see coming from the White House. The fact that the Prime Minister copied the U.S. President's plan to launch a sovereign debt fund is very telling about how both view the economy. The U.S. President has often compared himself to a mall manager, while the Prime Minister acts like a bank manager. Neither of them should be so intimately involved in the operations of any particular business.

This is exactly why Norway's actual sovereign wealth fund does not invest in Norway. It is the exact opposite of the sovereign debt funds in Canada and the United States. These debt funds are specifically designed to pick domestic companies. The temptation to politically interfere in the operations of companies or on behalf of the companies is too great.

We have too many examples of this already happening in Canada, even without the sovereign debt fund. The company formerly known as SNC-Lavalin is a perfect example. The last prime minister tried to bully his justice minister into letting SNC off the hook for bribery and corruption. When that did not work, he fired her. Then he replaced her with a man whom the current Prime Minister made our UN ambassador. Now SNC has a new name and new business partners who together have formed the consortium Cadence.

When the Liberals released a request for proposals to build Via's high-frequency rail system, Cadence submitted a proposal that called on the Liberals to scrap this popular plan and replace it with a much more expensive high-speed rail line. One of the partners in the consortium is the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, whose former president just so happened to be the Clerk of the Privy Council. Together they cooked up a secret plan to privatize the most profitable parts of Via while taxpayers pay for the rest of Via.

If the Liberals are going to hike taxes, the least they could do is not actively make every alternative form of transportation more expensive, yet that is the plan they cooked up with their billionaire buddies last week, to privatize our airports and to privatize Via Rail. Now, their first bill back proposes to hike the gas tax in the middle of winter.

To defend these choices, the Liberals have already started to point to examples of Europe. The Liberals want Europe's private airports without its robust airline competition. They want a French company to build their high-speed rail, without France's transparency laws. They want European levels of gas taxation to force us all into Chinese cars running on an electric grid powered by Brookfield.

What the Prime Minister really wants is to partner with Europe to impose carbon tariffs. The legacy media may have memory-holed the fact that the very first policy the Prime Minister ever proposed when he was just a Liberal leadership candidate 20 months ago was to impose carbon tariffs on Canadians who dared to purchase products from countries without a carbon tax. Is it any surprise the carbon tariff Prime Minister appointed the only Liberal MP to acknowledge carbon tariffs are coming as his parliamentary secretary?

This is all part of the Liberals' war on affordability. From their ban on plastic food packaging to their inflammatory deficit spending, everything they touch becomes more expensive. When the U.S. President endorsed our Prime Minister, he said it was because they agreed on many things. When President Trump attacked our Conservative leader, it was because we did not support the President's agenda.

What the Liberal Prime Minister and the Republican President agree on is that they should be at the centre of every consequential economic decision in the country. They both agree that the government should serve the interests of the investor class. Now the Liberals even have one big, beautiful omnibus bill to make Bay Street great again. Even Liberal-funded reporters are calling this latest move Trumpian. We would think they would have caught on to the similarities when the Prime Minister literally borrowed an oversized novelty page from the U.S. President's playbook on his first day in office.

Fortunately for Canadians and Americans, there is still one political party on this continent that actually believes in freedom. As our leader ably demonstrated last week, there is a clear path to long-term sustainable economic growth, and that is to empower the free people in a free market. The Prime Minister and the U.S. President have a faith-based approach to running a country's economy. They have the faith that their business acumen is more than enough to pick winners and losers.

Conservatives put our faith in the Canadian people. We trust Canadian entrepreneurs to out-innovate and out-compete the world. We trust Canadian consumers to buy the products and services that work best for them. We reject the tired idea that a president, a prime minister or even a king can decide who we can trade our property with. We believe in cutting red tape for all businesses, not just the ones that hire the best Liberal lobbyists. We believe in cutting taxes for all businesses, not just for the ones that invest in projects that Liberals find politically acceptable to support. Conservatives trust and believe in Canadians because we have confidence born of true patriotic love.

The Liberals and Republicans have succumbed to the siren song of economic nationalism and protectionism. That is rooted in insecurity. It saps confidence. It breeds corruption. It makes life less affordable. Is it really any coincidence that the sectors of our economy protected from foreign competition are the most expensive, such as domestic air travel, cellphone bills, insurance rates and broadband Internet? Canadians can reasonably blame the U.S. President's actions for the high price of gas, but Canadians have only the Liberal Party to blame for the high cost of everything else.

While the finance minister can pretend not to copy our policies, he cannot ignore reality for long. Canadians are being squeezed, and the Liberal plan to hike the gas tax in the middle of winter is not the solution. The Liberals are already raking in GST windfall from higher gas prices. They do not need to compound the pain with a frosty tax hike on February 1.

Instead of teasing Canadians with temporary tax relief, the Liberals could do the hard work of committing to substantial tax reform. Of course, this would actually force the Prime Minister to spend time in Canada rather than hitting the globalist gala circuit. It is clearly more enjoyable for the Prime Minister to spend all his time in Europe re-reannouncing our partnership strategy for a new future alliance for a strategic future.

Instead of introducing a bill to raise gas taxes and calling it a fuel affordability act, maybe the Prime Minister could use some of his international rizz to negotiate an end to the conflict over the Strait of Hormuz. With any luck, that would earn him a Nobel Peace Prize, which we could trade off for tariff relief, or instead, he could spend his time helping his former colleagues at Brookfield partner with a Crown corporation he controls to launch a new maple-flavoured investment fund.

Barring any attempt to subvert the fixed elections act, Canadians will get to render a verdict in October 2029 on how they think the Prime Minister has spent his time in office.

[Braeden Caley, Liberal, North Vancouver—Capilano, BC]

Mr. Speaker, graciously, over two decades ago, the member joined a group of students visiting Parliament, which I was a part of, and spoke about why the place mattered. It is somewhat of a surprise, at this advanced hour in the House proceedings tonight, to hear a verifiable bedtime story of snakes and ladders, of partisan attacks and personal attacks taking us variously across the globe and the country. Given that we are in the midst of a trade war, we are seeing businesses and workers impacted by tariffs that are unprecedented in any of our lifetimes.

Why does the member feel that is an important use of the House's valuable time, at such an important moment for our country? Maybe she could confirm, on a measure to lower costs for Canadians, how she actually intends to vote on this bill.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. colleague for his comments, but I did not enter the chamber or the House of Commons at all in my life before I became a member of Parliament. Unfortunately, he must have me confused with someone else.

I have the right to speak on behalf of the people I represent, and they are telling me they cannot afford to live. The grocery store is almost out of bounds. It used to be a place to socialize, but now it is a place they dread. I believe that my speaking on behalf of the people who are trying to get the message that they need more affordable prices to government is duly acceptable.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is a freedom fighter in the House, and we are proud to have her on this side.

My question is about the member's riding. She mentioned that it is expansive, and I am familiar with it. I know it is longer than most, end to end, and especially longer than many urban ridings the government members come from.

When fuel prices rise, and when government actions cause fuel prices to rise, can constituents and residents in her riding drive less? Can they drive less to work? Can they drive less to the grocery store? What happens to them when these costs rise? She has a big riding, and they have to go to far places. What do they do in that situation?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the expansive size means they need to have transportation to go to work or to the grocery store. We do not even have a bus system. We have no public transportation available, save for a new start-up service in the city of Pembroke, which helps no one living outside the city area. In fact, there are people living in rural areas who cannot even afford to get a car to get a job or to keep their job. They are having to give up their jobs because they cannot afford to get there. Seniors have to be masterful at planning their week out to get groceries or to see the doctor, because every cab ride costs them a minimum of $10. When one is on a very low fixed income, that takes up the entire month.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is one of the most experienced members of the House in terms of years of service. In fact, she served for nearly a decade on the government side during the Harper years.

In her speech, she was quite critical of our government's economic policies, which aim to strengthen the Canadian economy and make it more resilient. Her former leader, Mr. Harper, spoke at our recent economic summit in Toronto about the value of our government's economic policies.

I would like to hear her thoughts on Mr. Harper's speech at the recent economic summit in Toronto. I would also like to know how she reconciles her speech tonight with the one Mr. Harper gave in Toronto.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to bring back the spirit of former prime minister Harper in the House, he used to be reviled, but now he is seen as one of the best prime ministers we ever had in Canada. Like Prime Minister Harper, who made decisions based on what was right, this party does also, and we will do our job in Parliament in looking at each proposal that is made. If, like Mr. Harper, he supports certain things and we support certain things, we will vote in favour of them.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

There being no further members wishing to speak, pursuant to order made on Monday, September 21, Bill C-38, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, extension of the federal fuel excise tax relief, is deemed read a second time on division.

Accordingly, this bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Finance.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

Employment

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents struggling to make ends meet.

I want to begin by congratulating the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance for responding to my question without engaging in personal insults or cheap partisan attacks. This is a significant improvement over his last response, yet he declined to answer the actual question. Still, the response to my question was illuminating.

Given the Prime Minister's central pitch to voters was that he alone could save the Canadian economy, the news that economic growth is near zero is devastating to his brand. Canadians thought they were getting a technocratic central banker. Instead, we got an investment banker using taxpayers' pensions as leverage to catalyze a growing debt crisis.

The parliamentary secretary's answer reveals the dilemma the Liberals find themselves in. Unlike some of the more fanatical colleagues who describe the economy with unrealistic exuberance, the parliamentary secretary spoke about “signs of progress” and “building foundations”. A shrinking economy destroys the Prime Minister's brand. A booming economy destroys the justification for deficit spending. An anemic economy is just what the Liberals want. It was Justin Trudeau's justification for turning Canada back into a deficit country. It is this Prime Minister's justification for doubling Trudeau's deficit.

Unfortunately, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer made clear in June, there is just a 1% chance Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio will go down. This public debt is being used for the largest corporate welfare spending spree in Canadian history. This debt binge is happening at the exact same time investors are demanding higher interest rates for government debt.

The Liberals want us to ignore the slow growth, the job losses and the debt spiral. At the same time, they accuse us of ignoring the May jobs report. I looked at the jobs report, and it is not as rosy a picture as the Liberals would have us believe. The headline claims 88,000 jobs were created, yet Stats Canada hired 33,000 people to conduct the census in May, and 17,000 of the remaining jobs were in construction, which sounds great until you realize this is Canada, where we build more in the spring and summer and less in the winter.

When compared year over year, there has been no job growth in construction. We cannot say the same for retail. In May, 35,000 Canadians lost jobs in the retail sector. In fact, since May 2025, over 61,000 retail jobs have been lost. Despite what the Liberals would have us believe, Donald Trump cannot put a tariff on the mall.

The other big sector with job gains was in culture and recreation, because camps, resorts and other seasonal tourist businesses began hiring for the summer season. I know Liberals think they can control the weather with taxes, but they cannot claim credit when the sun shines. For 11 long years, the Liberals have been promising their deficit spending would turbocharge growth and investment. It has not.

Recently, the Prime Minister said that they are investing tremendous amounts of money in the country like we have never seen before. Oh, my apologies, that was a quote from President Trump. Here is the Prime Minister's quote: “We’ve secured new investment in the country of a size not seen, arguably, before.” Well, set aside the hyperbole and the Prime Minister's narcissism, Canadians can see the truth for themselves. Liberals love low growth. Only Conservatives are fighting for a strong economy.

[Madeleine Chenette, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages and to the Secretary of State (Sport)]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I really like about adjournment proceedings is that it does allow us the chance to publicly correct the record.

Conservatives were very quick to say that Canada was in a technical recession. We now know that is not the case. In August, Statistics Canada confirmed that the Canadian economy grew at an annualized rate of 3.3% in the second quarter, and also revised its Q1 figures to show that the economy grew in those months as well.

It would be nice if the Conservative Party were as quick to celebrate these achievements as they are to tell us that Canada is broken. However, sticking to the facts does not make for good social media clips or help with fundraising emails.

The world is changing rapidly. The U.S. is imposing new tariffs on Canada that are designed to hurt and divide us. At the same time, conflicts in Europe and the Middle East are driving up prices the world over. Despite these challenges, however, Canada continues to show resilience. While the new U.S. tariffs are creating headwinds, the Canadian economy is holding to a position of relative strength.

We certainly recognize that some workers, families and small businesses continue to be under pressure. That is why it is important to look at the facts, as well as the Canadian economy's overall performance. Canada's economic strength is recognized internationally. The International Monetary Fund predicts that Canada will be one of the fastest-growing economies in the G7 this year and next. Economic growth rebounded strongly in the second quarter, with real gross domestic product up 3.3%, as I mentioned. Canada had the strongest quarterly growth in the G7 and posted a second consecutive increase in real gross domestic product per capita. In addition, our net debt-to-GDP ratio sits at just 10.2%, far below the G7 average of 101.8%. In fact, Canada's net debt burden is far lower than any other G7 nation.

These facts show that Canada's economy is built to withstand global uncertainty and to continue to grow. This resilience is a direct result of the targeted measures our government has taken to support Canadians, such as making fuel more affordable for Canadians. That is why the government introduced Bill C-38, which extends the temporary suspension of the federal excise tax on gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel until January 31, 2027, after which 50% of the usual excise tax rate will apply from February 1 to March 31, 2027.

By reducing fuel and transportation costs, this measure will provide targeted relief to workers, families, farmers and businesses across the country, including in sectors that rely heavily on transportation and construction.

The government is also taking broader steps to make life more affordable, including through the Canada groceries and essentials benefit, income tax cuts for 22 million Canadians, the cancellation of the consumer carbon tax, and the GST relief for first-time homebuyers of new homes. Taken together, these measures will allow Canadians to keep more of their hard-earned money. Each one reflects a consistent principle that our government upholds, specifically that federal support must be timely, targeted and fiscally sustainable.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the latest Liberal talking point is to claim Canada is the second-fastest-growing economy in the G7. This is like your teenager claiming they were the least drunk person at the keg party.

What the Liberals do not like to mention is that the fastest-growing economy in the G7 is the United States. That means the U.K., Germany, France and Italy are all growing slower than us. Despite the slow growth in Europe, the Prime Minister has spent two-thirds of his overseas travel in Europe. He even enjoyed a family vacation in Tuscany while telling Canadians to vacation more at home. It is easy for the Prime Minister to fly to a nice privately owned European airport and give the same speech announcing the same new partnership strategy for a future alliance, for a new strategic future with the EU.

Talk is cheap, and fancy speeches in foreign capitals do not put food on the table for Canadians.

[Madeleine Chenette, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is that our government is delivering timely, tangible and fiscally sustainable relief for Canadians at a time when they need it, and we are doing so from a position of economic strength, not decline.

In a more uncertain world, the government is focused on what it can control, advancing nation-building projects, removing barriers to growth, unlocking private capital and making investments to build the strongest economy in the G7. That is how we will ensure that Canada not only avoids the worst-case scenarios predicted by many at the outset of the U.S. trade actions last year but also emerges stronger, with a boost today and a bridge to a better tomorrow.

The Economy

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the evening.

Before I begin my comments, I will note that we have had a debate throughout the entire day on Bill C-38. Many of the things I want to say that relate to my question from June were said during the debate on Bill C-38 as well. The point I would like to make, and I hope the government side can hear it, is that even though the Prime Minister has commenced a process to erase the legacy of Justin Trudeau, to move away from his most disastrous policies, structural reforms are still needed to ensure that small businesses, the businesses that pay the majority of taxes in Canada, are made whole.

We are going to see that through taxation and regulatory reform on a major scale, but we have not seen that yet. I encourage the government to heed the words that small businesses, the ones with eight to 10 employees, still need market access to the United States. These are 50-year-old relationships that are in jeopardy right now.

Today, business leaders from across western Canada came to Parliament. I will acknowledge that they are happy with Bill C-39, the Liberals' big, beautiful bill. They are happy about the attack the Liberals are going to make on organized labour, even though the Conservatives are still debating it and trying to figure it out. However, they have stressed the need for regulatory reform and measures that are going to help small businesses in western Canada. In Manitoba, for example, 50% of exports go to the United States. It is higher in a lot of other provinces. We have to take that relationship seriously.

In my question back in June, I highlighted that Canada has lost 100,000 entrepreneurs over the last two decades, and there has been a 19% increase in business exits since 2019. That is not acceptable. Right now, we are facing major challenges, but the government can do a couple of things better. It can look at the RTRI. Very few businesses understood what that program was, and the Minister responsible for Pacific Economic Development Canada was around nine months late in delivering it based on the timelines he stated when the program was announced.

If the Liberals say we are at economic war, why would they make businesses wait nine months for a program they said they would deliver in three months? That is simply not acceptable. We need confidence that the public service, the ministers and the parliamentary secretaries are going to step up, hold their public servants to a higher standard, do things in their power and actually move at the speeds they said they would in the last election. So far, we have not seen that. It has to change. We have to stand up for Canada. The government needs to stand up for Canada, and it is not doing that in a responsible way.

The final statistic I will mention is that according to a TD Economics report, graduates in mathematics, computer science and engineering are less likely to remain in Canada than non-STEM graduates. The University of Waterloo shows that the highest performing students are the most likely to leave Canada after graduation. Those are the entrepreneurs starting businesses. They are going to the United States to do that. We need to bring in the structural reforms to support small businesses and—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Madeleine Chenette, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages and to the Secretary of State (Sport)]

Mr. Speaker, the global economy is undergoing a rupture. Geopolitical threats are mounting, and countries around the world are grappling with severe trade disruptions and significant economic risks. This includes the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which continues to disrupt global energy supplies, drive up energy prices and increase uncertainty worldwide. Canada, as we all know, is not immune to this turbulence. That is why we tabled Bill C-38 to extend the temporary suspension of the federal fuel excise tax.

As members of the House will remember, last spring our government temporarily reduced federal fuel excise tax rates to zero cents per litre. While that measure was set to expire on Labour Day, Bill C-38 proposes to extend it until January 31, 2027. Fifty per cent of the regular excise tax rate would then apply from February 1 to March 31, 2027. This means that Canadians would continue to benefit from lower taxes, saving 10¢ per litre on gasoline and four cents per litre on diesel, helping households and businesses manage transportation and operating costs.

For many small businesses, transportation and fuel costs remain a significant expense. Extending this relief measure will help businesses manage their costs while continuing to invest and create jobs.

However, supporting Canadians through the current challenges is not just about providing immediate relief. It is also about ensuring that our economy remains strong, competitive and resilient in an uncertain world. While new U.S. tariffs add uncertainty for Canadian businesses and workers, Canada is starting from a position of strength.

With a robust economy and a clear growth strategy focused on driving investment, increasing productivity, strengthening domestic industries and expanding access to global markets, Canada is well placed to respond to external pressures.

Domestic activity has remained strong and our continental supply chains have been more resilient than expected, thanks to the adaptability of Canadian businesses and the fact that CUSMA protections shielded approximately 85% of Canadian merchandise exports from recent U.S. actions.

The business climate in Canada has recovered, and companies are diversifying both their suppliers and their markets. The figures show that Canada has what the world is looking for. Canada leads the G7 in terms of per capita foreign direct investment inflows. Overall, real GDP grew by 1.9% in 2025, despite persistent global uncertainty.

The outlook for the future remains encouraging. A Statistics Canada survey shows that businesses plan to increase their capital expenditures this year, while the International Monetary Fund forecasts that Canada will post the second-fastest growth in the G7 in 2026 and 2027.

Since the start of 2025, Canada has created more than twice as many jobs per capita as the United States, with the majority of these jobs in the private sector. Things have really taken off since the start of 2025. At the same time, inflation averaged 2.1% in 2025, while wages have risen faster than prices over the last five years.

Overall, these results show that the Canadian economy continues to grow, attract investment and create jobs despite a highly uncertain global environment. These results are no accident. They are truly the result of work that enables us to strengthen the economy and prioritize affordability—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

The hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will note the point made by the parliamentary secretary in respect to global uncertainty, but I would just ask the member to acknowledge, despite their efforts and their policy of erasure in respect to Justin Trudeau, that we can do more for small businesses in Canada today through regulatory change, supporting trade resilience and actually building the major projects that we thought were going to take place this year under Bill C-5, legislation that Conservatives supported again.

I understand that the first project will be approved in the coming weeks, but we need not one; we need 100. We have to move at speeds we have never seen before, and we are not seeing that from the current government, so please, stand up for Canada, get the bureaucracy out of the way and do more to support our small businesses.