Madam Speaker, it is an honour to stand up and speak to Bill C-47, the Liberals' budget bill. Certainly, I have had an opportunity to speak with my constituents with respect to the concerns that they have about this Liberal legislation. The thing that has been raised the most is that, going into the budget, they were told by the Liberal finance minister that there would be some fiscal restraint. Maybe for the first time in the Liberals' eight years in power, there would be a commitment to fiscal common sense. However, that certainly did not happen in this budget; we now see a $43-billion deficit. If that is the Liberals' definition of fiscal restraint, I would hate to see what happens when they turn on the taps and say that they are going to spend unreservedly.
When it comes to Canadians, the Liberals are now asking every single Canadian family to contribute an additional $4,300 to the Liberal government coffers to pay for their spending. I want Canadians across the country to have a different perspective on what the Liberals are asking them to do. I am asking Canadians to consider themselves shareholders in the corporation of Canada. Every single Canadian is a shareholder in this country. When the Liberals say they are taking on this debt so that Canadians do not have to, it is extremely misleading. The main funder of this corporation of Canada is the Canadian taxpayer. Therefore, if I am the Liberal Minister of Finance and I am asking Canadians to fund our $43-billion deficit spending with an additional $4,300 per family, as the shareholder of that company, the first question I am going to ask is this: “What is my return on investment? What is my ROI on an additional call-out for cash from the Liberal government?”
If the Liberal government has to explain to Canadians what their ROI is on that additional tax grab, it is a pretty tough sell. We Canadians have a $30-billion-plus Infrastructure Bank that has not built a single project. We have chaos at the airports. We cannot get a passport if we want one. People might not be able to get their questions on their tax returns answered by the CRA. The carbon tax is going up, and we are going to have skyrocketing inflation and food prices. We have lost the respect of our most trusted trading partners. We cannot fund our own military and defend ourselves or respond to crises around the world. Other than that, Canadians' investment is well spent with the Liberal government in the corporation of Canada.
How would any common-sense Canadian feel that this has been a good return on their investment? I would say that there is not a single Canadian who would say that the current Liberal government has been a good steward of Canadian tax dollars. I would say there is no government in Canadian history that has spent so much to achieve so little. I do not think there is a Canadian government in history that has spent so much on the bureaucracy and the public service to see it come to a state of such dysfunction. I do not think there is a Canadian government in history that has been so committed to taxing Canadians into submission.
I do not think there is any better example than the Liberals' carbon tax. At a time of 40-year record-high inflation and a struggling economy coming out of COVID and the pandemic, no other government in the world was increasing taxes through a carbon tax. Our number one trading partner, the United States, does not have a carbon tax; the carbon tax is putting us, our farmers, our ranchers, our food producers, our manufacturers and Canadian industry at a stark competitive disadvantage.
What makes it more frustrating for those Canadians who are being asked to contribute more to the Liberals' out-of-control spending is that the Liberal carbon tax has been proven to be a sham. The latest reports confirm that the Liberals have not met a single environmental emissions target they have set for themselves. Now the Parliamentary Budget Officer has confirmed what we have pretty much known all along, which is that the carbon tax costs Canadians more than they get back from the Liberals' sham of a rebate. In fact, it is going to cost every Canadian family and certainly every Alberta family about $1,500 a year. What a surprise that Canadians are not better off paying a higher tax. I would ask the Liberal government to show me any tax that has made Canadians better off.
We knew this when the Liberals brought in the carbon tax rebate for farmers that was supposed to make farmers whole. It was going to be revenue-neutral. However, we have now seen the numbers, and farmers get about 15% back in the carbon tax rebate from Bill C-8. This is nothing new.
The Liberals have been telling Canadians for years that they get more money back than they pay in the carbon tax through rebates, but the Parliamentary Budget Officer made it glaringly clear that this is not the case. It is costing Canadians money. Rather than admit their mistake and say that the carbon tax is a scam, the Liberals are doubling down. They increased the carbon tax again on April 1, and on July 1, it will be imposed on Atlantic Canadians: happy Canada Day.
What the NDP-Liberal carbon tax coalition does not understand is that there are very real consequences to these types of decisions. For example, when the carbon tax is tripled by 2030, it will cost an average Canadian farm $150,000 a year in carbon taxes alone. It is going to put the financial viability of Canadian agriculture and agri-food in jeopardy. It makes us uncompetitive. We already had the most expensive harvest in Canadian history last year, and this is only going to add to those input costs.
For the average Canadian, the consequences are very simple. Higher carbon taxes mean higher production costs and higher prices at the grocery store. Every single Canadian is paying the price for the carbon tax coalition, and they are paying for it at the grocery store when they buy bread, pasta, fruit, vegetables, meat, milk and eggs. They are paying for it over and over again.
I had a constituent family with four kids tell me their grocery bill went up $700 a month. I do not know very many Canadian families that could afford that. Again, we are seeing the consequences of that when one out of five Canadian families is skipping meals because they cannot afford groceries. They cannot afford to put food on the table for their families. They are having to make that decision to pay their mortgage and their heat and power bills by skipping a meal.
We had the CEO of the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto come to the agriculture committee a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about food security. His comment was that their numbers in March quadrupled from what they would normally see in visitors to the food bank. He called the numbers they are seeing “startling” and “horrific”. He has been quoted as saying, “we are in a crisis. The Daily Food Bank and food banks [in Toronto] are at a breaking point”. There are very real consequences when we increase costs and taxes on Canadians and food production. The numbers we are seeing at the food bank are a direct consequence of that.
Canada's food price index is showing that groceries for a family of four are going to go up another $1,000 in 2023. Unfortunately, it is only going to get worse if the Liberal government continues with the policies it is imposing. A recent study that came out last week from Dalhousie University is bracing Canadians for even higher food prices. The study says that, by 2030, the average food price is going to go up 35%. Bread will go up 35%; dairy, 40%; fruit and vegetables, 29%; and meat, 45%. That is what may happen if the Liberals continue on this ideological policy drive that they are on. Increased carbon taxes are increasing production costs, regulation and red tape on transportation and supply chain, which means direct costs to Canadians.
The solution to higher food prices and higher food costs is simple, and one of the steps the Liberals could take is eliminating the carbon tax. It is not meeting any environmental targets that they are setting themselves, and it is certainly causing more pain than anything else. When the carbon tax is tripled, it may cost an average Alberta family $2,200 a year.
In conclusion, I ask the NDP-Liberal carbon tax coalition to reflect on the hurt and the pain they are putting on Canadians. In fact, the NDP used to be the party of Canadian farmers. I wonder why it has lost that support over the years. Maybe they should take some time to reflect on what happened.
We cannot support this budget. As Conservatives, we are going to stand up for Canadian families and affordability, not the ideological policy that is hurting Canadians.
