Tamara Jansen

[Business of Supply, June 10th, 2025]

Mr. Chair, can the minister tell me how much federal debt needs to be refinanced over the next five years?

[Business of Supply, June 9th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the story about growing up on farmland.

The costs being driven up by red tape are absolutely astronomical. In my speech, I specifically talked about inflation rates. That is such an incredible extra cost on every farmer that we cannot afford. If we continue to spend with recklessness, we will continue to see inflation rates rise.

[Business of Supply, June 9th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, this is a great question. Every family in Cloverdale—Langley City knows what it means to budget. Parents sit at the kitchen table every week deciding what they can and cannot afford. Meanwhile, the government racks up half a trillion in spending without even producing a budget. The more the Liberals borrow, the more it drives up interest rates, and that hits mortgages and grocery prices. It hits everyone.

My constituents are not asking for luxury; they are asking for stability, but what they are getting is debt, inflation and empty cupboards. That not leadership; that is failure.

[Business of Supply, June 9th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, while I appreciate the question, I ran out of time to spotlight another huge issue, red tape, which is really impacting food affordability.

Maurizio Zinetti, owner of Zinetti Foods in Cloverdale, recently approached me regarding an issue that will seriously impact food affordability. He reached out to share just how serious the impact of the new front-of-package labelling rules are for his business, and I have to say that I left that conversation very frustrated.

This is a Canadian-owned company doing everything right: producing high-quality food, employing Canadians and helping families across this country. Now, thanks to new packaging rules and regulations that are not even about food safety, he is staring down a $2.2-million compliance bill. He is not alone. Across the industry, the total cost of these regulations is expected to top $1.8 billion.

[Business of Supply, June 9th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, while inflation continues to drive food prices higher, the government still has not taken the one step that could start to restore confidence. We are coming perilously close to summer, and Canadians still do not have a budget. Parliament voted unanimously for the government to bring a budget forward in April. Instead, all the Prime Minister says he will do is take note of the vote. That is not leadership; that is disrespect, and it is not acceptable.

Here is why a budget matters, especially right now. Investors are concerned, and if they are concerned, we have a problem. Canada's debt issuance is set to surpass $628 billion this fiscal year, beating even the pandemic-era high. That is a massive pile of debt. As the government borrows more, markets demand higher interest to compensate for rising risk. Canada's 10-year bond yields have already jumped over 50 basis points since April, hitting around 3.3%.

Investors are getting nervous, and they are starting to demand higher returns before they will lend Canada money. That means long-term borrowing is going to get a lot more expensive, and fast. Without a budget, no one knows how much the government plans to borrow or what it will spend it on, and that makes investors nervous. When they see runaway spending and no plan to pay for it, they demand higher returns to cover the risk. That drives up interest rates, and the cost of borrowing goes through the roof.

When a government borrows more, it means less money left over for hospitals, schools and roads. Inflation drives up interest rates. Higher interest rates drive up food production costs. Debt servicing for the farm is already a major cost. It is one of the highest costs for farmers and they cannot afford more. When the government refuses to lead or even show a plan, every Canadian is left holding the bag, paying more at the grocery store, on their bills and in their taxes.

Across the country, Canadians are doing everything right. They work hard, they budget carefully and they make sacrifices, but the government taxes the farmer who grows the food and spends without restraint while inflation skyrockets. When Parliament demands a budget, the Liberals shrug and say they will take note. Well, Canadians deserve better than that. In Cloverdale—Langley City, I have seen seniors line up for food banks and parents skip meals. Families wonder how much longer they can keep stretching their dollar. They are not asking for much, just a government that lives within its means and helps them to do the same.

Let me close with this. No parent should have to choose between a power bill and putting food on the table. After years of broken Liberal promises, it is time to put Canadians first.

[Business of Supply, June 9th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said he would be judged by the prices Canadians pay at the grocery store. Well, Canadians are holding him to that, and what they are seeing is shocking. Grocery prices are through the roof, food banks are overwhelmed, and more and more families are skipping meals, not because they want to but because they have to. In Cloverdale—Langley City, seniors who once relied on the food bank weekly now have to ration their visits to make room for new families in need.

Across the country, people are working full-time jobs and still cannot afford basic groceries. It has never been clearer that affordability is not just an issue but that it is a crisis. What is the government doing in response? It is making it worse with taxes on food production, with out-of-control inflationary spending and with a refusal to table a responsible budget.

Today I want to speak for the people who are being left behind and call on the government to start putting Canadians first. If we want to fix food prices, we need to start at the source: our producers, farmers right across Canada. The government will tell us that it has removed the carbon tax, but let us be honest; that is just spin. What the Liberals have removed are the visible portions of carbon tax, the part that showed up on our fuel bill, but the tax is still there, buried in the cost of producing and transporting food.

Farmers still pay the industrial carbon tax on natural gas, propane and heating, for everything from drying grain to heating barns. These are not luxuries; they are essential parts of growing and storing our food. That tax gets passed along to every Canadian family at the checkout counter. We must not forget that our competitors in the U.S. and Mexico are not paying these hidden taxes, and their production costs are already lower. Why are we punishing our farmers, putting us at a major competitive disadvantage?

In Cloverdale—Langley City, both the Cloverdale Community Kitchen and Langley Food Bank are overwhelmed. Demand is growing so fast that they have had to ask seniors to cut back their visits from weekly to every two weeks, just to make space for all the new families showing up. This is not just a local issue, though; across Canada, more than two million visits were made to food banks in a single month. That is double what we saw five years ago. One-third of the clients are children, and nearly one in five is a person who is employed but still cannot afford groceries.

This is what happens when government policy punishes the very people who produce our food. We cannot tax the farmer who grows the food and the trucker who ships the food, and then act surprised when Canadians cannot afford to eat the food. The government says it cares about affordability, but its actions are showing the exact opposite. It is time to stop making life harder for those who feed us. If we want to lower prices at the checkout, then we have to axe the industrial tax for farmers and Canadians across Canada. Let them do what farmers do best, which is to feed the country, and let Canadians finally catch a break at the grocery store.

The damage does not end at the farm gate. Once food makes it off the field, it runs headfirst into another Liberal-made problem: inflation driven by out-of-control spending. It is hard to believe, but the new Liberal government has managed to outdo even itself. The Prime Minister inherited a bloated, reckless government, and rather than tighten the belt, he made it worse. Despite his promise to spend less, his first major bill spends 8% more than Trudeau's last year in office. That is not restraint; it is a runaway train.

This is a half-a-trillion-dollar spending spree with no budget, and the consequences are very real. Experts are now warning that government borrowing is set to hit record highs, even higher than during the pandemic. That means higher interest rates, higher borrowing costs and more pressure on an already-fragile economy. While the government racks up debt, Canadians are paying the price at the checkout line. When the government spends beyond its means, it drives up inflation. That is not theory; it is a reality.

Every reckless dollar Ottawa spends makes that dollar in our wallet worth less. Just ask the single mom trying to buy fresh fruit for her kids, or the senior on a fixed income watching groceries eat through their pension. They budget before they spend, but somehow the “man with the plan” cannot do the same.

Let us not forget where those reckless dollars are going. Consultants are getting a record-breaking $26.1 billion in this plan, which works out to $1,400 per Canadian household. This is not for housing and not for food, but for consultants. To top it off, on the very same day the Prime Minister promised in his throne speech to cap operating spending at 2%, his government introduced a bill to increase spending by 8%. That was just two hours later.

Canadians are forced to make hard decisions every single day, cutting back on groceries and downsizing their lives, yet their government cannot even produce a basic budget to show how it is going to pay for it all. If we want to get food inflation under control and food prices down, it starts here. Stop the reckless spending. Put Canadians first, not consultants—

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, June 4th, 2025]

Madam Speaker, my colleague says that the Liberals ran on a plan but Canadians are still waiting to see it. The new Prime Minister came in with the weight of big promises, fiscal discipline, economic competence and leadership in uncertain times, but since then, spending has jumped 8%. There is still no budget. Canadians are facing real struggles and they deserve more than campaign slogans. Canadians deserve a government that takes its responsibility seriously, and that starts with a budget.

Will the Liberals bow to the will of the House and produce a budget before this spring, as we all voted for?

[Finance, May 30th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, this is what it looks like when a country is flying blind: no budget, no plan and millions of families left in the dark. Parliament was shut down for half a year, and then came the snap election. Now, the new Prime Minister wants to spend half a trillion dollars but is refusing to deliver a budget. There are no answers, just smoke and mirrors, while real people are struggling to stay afloat.

I know a young couple in the GTA who are doing everything right. They are working hard and saving every dollar, yet they still cannot afford a home. Pre-construction sales are down over 70%, and experts say a housing shortage is just around the corner. The dream of home ownership is slipping away. For families who already own, mortgage payments are falling behind, groceries and gas are eating up what is left of the paycheque, and our young people, kids just starting out, are drowning in credit card debt.

No business would ever let a new CEO get away with this. The board would demand a budget, and Canadians deserve the same.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, May 30th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, we absolutely need to make sure that we are working to ensure that this tragedy is taken care of, and we will be providing as much support as we can.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, May 30th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, it is not just from my voters; it is actually also from my own experience as a businesswoman. Never, ever, did we work without a budget. The reason we need a budget is so we can see whether we are on track. If we are not on track, we will never know. Things will go off the rails very quickly. Even the bank requires that we be disciplined by having a budget, following the budget and making sure we are staying within our expenses.