Mr. Speaker, it is no surprise that people are struggling with the cost of living, and it is incumbent on us as legislators not only to listen but to act. Any tax on fuel, whether it be gas or diesel, is ultimately a tax on food. Whether the government wants to admit it or not is another question for another day, but Canadians are out of money and do not have time to wait for us to agree.
I will start off by saying that while I do not think this goes far enough, it is a step in the right direction. Conservatives have been calling for the Liberals to remove taxes on fuel for months. It is nice to see that at least some of the Liberals on the other side do in fact take lessons from Conservatives. I do not believe we would be here today debating this bill had it not been for the relentless pressure from Conservatives and our Conservative caucus over the last number of years on this very topic.
Conservatives like me are fighting for Canadians, who are working hard but find themselves unable to get ahead. Some 35% of Canadians say they are anxious about money, and 28% lack emergency savings to cover basic needs. Canadian families are paying 7.8% more for transportation, while the cost of groceries rose 3.1%. Well over half, or 56% of parents, said they could not fit the cost of back-to-school supplies into their normal budgets.
To some, this might just seem like numbers, but do not be fooled. Behind every number and statistic is a story from a Canadian struggling to get by: someone who is pulling their groceries off the conveyor as the till ticks up faster than they expected, a family who was not quite able to complete the back-to-school shopping list because they just did not have the funds or the children who are no longer in organized sports because there is not enough money in the family budget to drive them there and back. These are the real stories of the real Canadians I heard from this summer, and I know that many of my colleagues heard very similar stories from their constituents.
These are Canadians who are hard-working and have done everything right, but they find themselves in a spot where inflation is going up faster than their paycheque, and they are navigating countless challenges. This summer specifically, I heard from a number of people who are navigating challenging consumer proposals, bankruptcies and foreclosures and who are facing financial ruin because they simply could not keep up for too many months in a row. In far too many of these cases, there are children involved. The kids might not fully understand what this means, but they do know that their parents are stressed out and do not quite understand why.
According to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, insolvencies have climbed to levels not seen since the aftermath of the great recession. Let that sink in. We are seeing insolvencies at a rate we have not seen since the great recession, while consumer insolvencies rose another 6.9% year over year. At the same time, mortgage delinquencies have reached their highest level since 2021. Again, behind every single one of these stats is a story of a real Canadian struggling. These are heartbreaking stories, and they are becoming far too common.
Canadians already owe an average of $1.76 for every dollar of disposable household income they earn, and MNP reports that more than 40% are within $200 of insolvency at month-end. It means that 40% of Canadians are within $200 of not being able to pay their bills every single month. Many families have exhausted all of their savings, refinanced their debt and begged and borrowed simply to afford rent, mortgages and everyday necessities like groceries and school supplies. These are real-life consequences of more than a decade of Liberal mismanagement of our economy.
While this bill would in fact offer some relief, it is not the cure for the out-of-control inflation Canadians are still facing. If the Liberals were serious about helping Canadian families make ends meet, they would not stop at a 10¢-per-litre break and pat themselves on the back. They would adopt our plan to remove all federal taxes on gas and diesel until at least Canada Day 2027. That means giving Canadians a break from the excise tax and the GST on gas and diesel, and permanently scrapping the seven-cents-per-litre clean fuel standard and the industrial carbon tax. This could provide 25¢ of savings per litre of gas and diesel and would bring as much as $1,000 of savings to the average Canadian family.
A recent poll found that 63% of Canadians oppose the Liberal government bringing back the fuel excise tax, including 43% who strongly oppose it. There is no surprise to that because all families see are their gas prices continuing to go up month over month, or day to day, it seems. This opposition is not just concentrated in one part of the country. It crosses every region of the country: 71% in the member opposite's riding in Manitoba and Saskatchewan; 64% in British Columbia, Alberta and Atlantic Canada; 62% in Ontario; and 60% in Quebec. It is clear that Canadians are asking for it. They need relief from the cost of living crisis.
I live in rural Alberta. I represent rural Albertans. Many of my colleagues have no idea of the lengths we routinely need to travel just to live life, whether it is to go to work, take our children to school or day care, go to a medical appointment or visit family and friends. It is a 300-kilometre trip for me just to get out of town. I do not think most people in this chamber, whether they are a Conservative, Liberal or Bloc member, understand the lengths that many of us rural MPs go to to serve our constituents.
Every single penny saved at the pump gives people a choice. It gives them the choice of what food they are going to put on the table for dinner that night, which events they can attend, which bills they can pay and how they can plan for their future. It gives them agency. It makes it so they are not dependent on government for every single decision in their life.
For some across the country, the monthly gas or diesel bill is relatively small, but for many of the amazing people I represent, it is not small. It is a significant part of their monthly budget, and it seems to only ever go up. It is also not an optional line in their budget. Most people I represent cannot take transit most of the time because it either does not work for their schedule or simply does not exist at all. Most people cannot walk, as the distances are simply too far, and in the winter, the brutal prairie cold is not for the faint of heart. They often do not have a choice; they must drive, and every time fuel prices go up, they feel it.
They understand a concept that somehow seems to elude many Liberals: When fuel prices go up, grocery prices follow, because food does not just magically appear on the table like my kids sometimes think it does, or teleport to a grocery store. It gets transported on a truck. Those trucks use diesel, and the operators of those companies cannot simply absorb those costs. Freight costs then get passed on to consumers. It is really basic economics.
Conservatives are fighting to restore affordability by lowering taxes, unleashing investment, removing barriers to growth and advancing a real economic action plan that helps Canadians get ahead. The Conservative economic action plan would green-light the 500 projects that are sitting somewhere here in Ottawa on someone's desk and were supposed to move at unimaginable speeds. Conservatives supported the Liberals in trying to move those forward. We just did not imagine that those unimaginable speeds would amount to nothing.
My call to the Liberals is to get to work. Canadians are not asking for more promises. They are asking for real relief that they can actually feel in their wallets. They are working hard. They are making sacrifices and doing everything they can to provide for their families, yet too many are still falling further behind. A 10¢-per-litre reduction may provide some temporary relief, but Canadians deserve a government willing to address the broader affordability crisis and give families the certainty they need to get ahead.
Conservatives will continue to fight to lower taxes, lower costs, more investment and an economy that works—