Mr. Speaker, today we have an opportunity in this Parliament to reflect on the different priorities of the parties. In the Conservative Party, our priorities are clear. We want to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. The Conservatives will axe the carbon tax everywhere for good. The carbon tax is a failed NDP-Liberal policy that has driven up the cost of everything. It has failed to achieve the alleged environmental objectives that are behind it. It has made gas more expensive and emissions have continued to go up under the government. Many Canadians are suffering as the price of basic things Canadians buy goes up as a result of the carbon tax. That is why the Conservatives, rather than tinkering around the edges, would axe the tax everywhere for everyone and for good. We want a carbon tax election now so we can deliver the removal of the carbon tax for Canadians.
The Conservatives will axe the tax and build the homes. We announced a critical new policy this week that would make a significant difference by making homes available for Canadians. The Liberals' own advisers have praised the Conservative plan for building homes. In the last nine years, the Liberals have failed to build homes, and rent has doubled under the Liberals. As we have heard many times, costs are up, crime is up and rent is up, and that is why time is up for the government. Canadians want a new government that will deliver on a real plan to build homes.
The Conservatives will require municipalities to meet critical targets for the construction of new homes. Municipalities that meet those targets will be rewarded; municipalities that do not meet those targets will lose federal funding. This is the kind of real leadership for results that the Conservatives believe in. The Liberals signal that they care without actually doing the hard work of achieving results, and we can measure the outcomes of their policies in the results.
The Liberals think it is all about how much money is spent. They profess that we should look at how much money they have spent on this and that. The real test of a housing policy is not how much money the government has spent; it is how much money Canadians have to spend every month when they pay their rent. A housing policy is working if Canadians are not being forced to pay more and more every month for rent, yet the Liberals want to trumpet their own spending rather than look at the realities of the costs for Canadians.
Costs are up, crime is up and, for the government, time is up. Canadians want a government that is going to build the homes. Therefore, the Conservatives' priorities are to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.
How would we fix the budget? It is very simple. We would bring in a dollar-for-dollar rule requiring that when there is a new dollar of government spending, that dollar is identified as coming from somewhere. We cannot continually increase spending without ever reviewing and looking at where those dollars are going to come from. The Liberals have been living in an economic fantasy world for the last nine years, where they can spend and spend without considering where the money is going to come from. Canadians know that is not the reality. That is not the reality that small businesses face in this country, nor the reality that families face in this country. Eventually, that reality catches up with government as well.
In nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, the national debt has more than doubled. Debt servicing costs have soared. Canadians are paying more because of the carbon tax, but also because of the inflation tax. The increase in government spending is driving up the costs that Canadians face by reducing the value of the dollar in their pocket. If we have more dollars chasing the same number of goods, that is not going to make anyone richer. It simply means that everything is going to cost more in dollar terms.
We need a government that is going to replace this incontinent fiscal policy with a focused, disciplined fiscal policy that includes a dollar-for-dollar rule. If we are going to propose a new spending program, we have to be able to explain where the money is coming from. The Liberals have run massive deficits in every single year they have been in power. In reality, this is not what Canadians have traditionally associated with the Liberal Party. It is more of a radical NDP fiscal policy. This is an NDP-Liberal government we see. As we can identify in today's discussion on the corruption motion, effectively, with this reconstituted coalition between the NDP and the Liberals, we have the worst of both worlds.
We have NDP fiscal and economic policy and we have Liberal ethics. That is what we have with the NDP-Liberal government, the radical far-left NDP approach to the economy applied to government, along with the Liberals' disregard for our institutions, for the rule of law and for proper accountability in government. This, again, is why Canadians are looking at the situation and they are saying that time is up for the NDP-Liberal government. Time is up for the Liberal government. We need a new government with new priorities, priorities that involve axing the tax, building the homes, fixing the budget and stopping the crime.
On the issue of crime, it is very clear in the last nine years that, under the NDP-Liberals, violent crime has gotten so much worse in Canada. The government should be judged not by their words but by the results. It will be judged by the results of what it has done. Costs are up for Canadians and crime is up dramatically because of policy choices that they made.
Liberals would always like to present themselves as victims of circumstance. They would like people to believe that as soon as they got into office, things started going wrong but that it had nothing to do with them. That is the story that they would like to tell, yet we can see, with criminal justice policy in particular, that they made specific decisions around sentencing and enforcement that changed the rates of violent crime in this country.
Conservatives would restore common sense when it comes to criminal justice policy. That includes jail, not bail, for repeat violent offenders. That includes support for treatment and recovery for those who are struggling with addictions. Liberals have pursued a failed drug policy, which is paying the pushers of drugs. Their policy of safe supply is leading more money to go back into the pockets of bad corporate actors like Purdue Pharma that make dangerous drugs that are then given away for free, at taxpayers' expense, to those who are struggling.
Conservatives would sue those bad corporate actors like Purdue Pharma and McKinsey that are responsible for the opioid crisis. We would put that money into treatment and recovery. This emphasis on treatment and recovery would help address the challenges we face with crime.
For those who commit violent offences in this country, they are going to face serious consequences under a common-sense Conservative government. Our priorities are to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime, to restore the country that we know and love, to bring it home, to bring home the country that Canadians remember.
It was not this way before Justin Trudeau. Pardon me. It was not this way before the Prime Minister—