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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 47

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 28, 2022 11:00AM
  • Mar/28/22 12:23:59 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-8 
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure, as always, to rise in the House to represent what I feel are the views in my riding of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, in eastern Ontario, in response to the government's economic plan. Since it tabled this legislation, which we have been debating over the last couple months, last week's circumstance of the surprise but unsurprising deal between the NDP and the Liberals blew up the fiscal framework, several parts of which are in the bill and are going to be in subsequent budgets over the course of the next couple of years. This specific piece of legislation has $70 billion in new inflationary spending. One thing I say to constituents very often when we are talking about support for and the funding of various programs is that it is very easy to say that we are going to fund programs A, B, C and D. That is the motherhood and apple pie of our job. The difficult part, which I believe Canadians are paying more attention to, is the financial situation and stability that our country faces. Every single dollar in this bill, if not every single part of it, is new debt and deficit to our Canadian treasury. Canadians hear the statistic, as confirmed in the bill, that our national debt is now $1.2 trillion and growing, and one of the things we hear about is ideas. Parliament is for proposing ideas, and we are all here to make life better for Canadians. However, like in many of these bills, discussions and debates, putting the paid-for aspects on the Canadian credit card, for lack of a better term, is not talked about by the NDP and Liberal deal. I have to laugh as I say that. As an aside, we ask if it is a coalition, an agreement, a friendship, a pact or a Kumbaya. Whatever it is, there is a framework and deal when it comes to the fiscal policy of this country over the course of the next few years. I would argue that from a technical perspective, the parties have a right in Parliament to come up with this agreement. I will not deny that. However, I think there is an ethical challenge here in terms of the openness and transparency of it. Millions of people voted for the NDP and did not vote to give the Liberal government, when it comes to committee or other measures, a free pass. Alternatively, there are many people who voted for Liberal candidates across the country who did not agree, on top of already having a deficit, to billions and billions of dollars of additional money. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, who does great work, has had a couple of great reports that I think show a few things when it comes to the fiscal framework proposed by the government and NDP team. When it comes to the proposed stimulus spending, the PBO said, “It appears to me that the rationale for the additional spending initially set aside as ‘stimulus’ no longer exists.” He also said, “Yes, they can” in response to being asked if government deficits can contribute to inflation. Given the bigger picture here when we look at the economic situation and this economic bill, there is a clear contrast between us on the opposition side as Conservatives and this proposed bill from the Liberals and the NDP. There are a few things I want to talk about in my comments today that provide the contrast. Other ideas are better solutions for moving this country forward, getting back to normalcy, getting our fiscal house in order and addressing many of the growing challenges and situations I am hearing about in my riding and beyond. Housing is an example. I have spoken nearly every time I have risen in the House for the past couple of months about the growing crisis, not only in the housing market but in the rental market in the city of Cornwall, the united counties of SDG and parts of Akwesasne as well. That is a microcosm of what is happening nationally. What is in this legislation is not a ban on foreign buyers, which was promised. We believe they should be banned for two years. That could help cool the market, particularly in larger cities. One of the other things we talked about, and a new motion coming up is proposing ideas on it, is the government's proposed fiscal policy when it comes to housing and the first-time homebuyer shared equity program. It has been an abject failure, number one because of the participation numbers in it. The idea that the government would help give shared equity to Canadians to buy their homes may be admirable at face value to some, but all that is going to do is further inflate an already expensive housing market. If we provide an extra $100,000 or $200,000 to help people afford a home, all that will do is to let sellers know, when there are 13 or 14 people bidding on a house in the city of Cornwall, that they have an extra $100,000 or $200,000 more in leverage to inflate the market. This is more government debt and more government printing. It is not actually lowering prices and making home ownership more affordable. It is increasing debt and increasing prices and not addressing the fundamental aspect. I have to call out another slap to Canadians, which is the bonuses that were given at the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which were released a few weeks ago. CMHC is an organization that has a literal mandate to make sure Canadians have housing affordability. I do not need to summarize where we are with that in this country. Housing prices, nationally, have doubled. In our riding, housing prices are over $400,000. That has doubled in the past five years of this housing crisis. The very benchmark of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation is to make housing affordable. The absolute opposite has happened. For more people, the dream of home ownership and affordability is out the window, but CMHC, the Liberal minister responsible for housing and the Liberal government gave $40 million in bonuses to employees at the organization. That is a slap in the face to the 30-year-old who is living in their parent's basement because they cannot afford their dream of home ownership and who cannot afford rent because we do not have supply. I do not know what shows more of the contrast in what we are doing. The cost of living and inflation is at a 30-year high, the highest in nearly my entire lifetime of 34 years. At the rate we are going, when we get there, we will set another record in the coming months. When we talk about contrast, I say each time that our job as opposition is to hold the government to account on what they have proposed but also to put our money where our mouth is. If we were on the other side of the aisle, since this is Parliament and we can propose ideas, what would we do? I have to say, I have been very proud of my Conservative colleagues over the course of the last couple of weeks. They have highlighted a few issues that, I believe, provide a direct contrast with the plans proposed by the Liberals and the NDP. First of all, we need to get opened back up. We need to end federal mandates, vaccine mandates and travel requirements. We have heard from employers, and we have heard from the travel and tourism industry, that they are very nervous about the year ahead. Based on where the science is at, not where it was two years ago, but here today at the end of March 2022, we can lift those mandates and get our country opened up. We can be back for business. We can be welcoming international visitors safely and smartly and get our economic engine firing at 100% again. We lost that battle. We proposed that idea and, again, the Liberal and NDP coalition, friendship, team, pack or whatever we call them, did not agree with that. Last week in our opposition day motion, which was one of the days last week, when we had the debate and then the vote right afterwards, was something we tried to put on record and did get on record. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful, again because of the other parties, but we talked about the high price of gas and many other goods in the country. There are two things here. Number one is that we asked for a break on GST on fuel. I came into Ottawa last night from the riding. I stopped in Monkland to fill up with gas. It was over $1.70 a litre. I know there are a lot of people in Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry who have to drive to work. There is not a subway or LRT option in Monkland or Iroquois or Crysler. I do not think there is one coming anytime soon. Driving a car to get to work or to go to hockey practice is essential when living in a rural area. We called for a gas tax break. It was voted down. It would not solve the affordability problem, but it could have given some tax relief at a time when Canadians truly need it. The other problem we have to confront, which the government is not doing through their economic policies, is that the carbon tax is set to increase again later this week. We are saying that, if we are not going to give a break to Canadians at the pumps when prices are high, at least do not increase taxes on everybody on April 1. That was declined. In a democracy, there are going to be contrasts. Our contrast is quite clear. We understand the cost of living. We understand the need for relief for Canadians. When it comes to housing, we have a fundamentally different approach. For those reasons, again, I do not support the economic and fiscal update tabled by the government. I have a feeling that with the new deal between the Liberals and the NDP, I do not see ourselves doing so in the coming years either. We will see, here on the floor of the House of Commons, further constructive ideas from Conservatives.
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  • Mar/28/22 3:38:44 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-8 
Madam Speaker, we are talking about Bill C-8, an act to implement certain provisions of the economic and fiscal update. We are talking about the economic pressures that Canadians are feeling, which are today at a generational high of 5.7%. However, if we look at industry-specific statistics, it can be much worse than that. We are also talking about housing. The cost of housing, in the time the Liberal government has been office, has doubled. That is the legacy the government leaves behind when it comes to housing. Despite all of its programs designed to make housing more affordable, or maybe because of all those programs, the cost of housing is skyrocketing and it is becoming impossible for many young families to get into their first home. It is a deep concern. We are urging the government to abandon its programs, like, for example, the failed first-time homebuyer incentive, and to instead look at the basic economic principle of supply and demand. That is the principle that says if an economy is not supplying the goods and services that people need and in the amounts they need, nor the types of product they want, there will be inflation. That is exactly what is happening in Canada today. We have so many young families that want to get into their first home. We have record high immigration, and we all need a place to live. We also have a shortage of rental stock in our growing cities. Coupling that together with unprecedented spending by the government during the pandemic, borrowed money and printed money, we have a perfect storm. We have too many dollars chasing too few goods, and that is what is causing inflation. I know the governing party has now adopted the Conservative policy in its platform of increasing housing supply. Well, that is a really good idea, and I have a few specific, concrete ideas focusing on my riding of Langley—Aldergrove that would help to increase the housing supply. First, let us get the SkyTrain built from downtown Surrey to downtown Langley and encourage local governments to open up new areas of land for urban redevelopment. Second, let us speed up the approval process for new developments so that Canada is the fastest place to get an approval. Investment dollars will come flowing into our economy. Third, let us create balanced communities and more jobs close to home. Again, I am going to focus on my riding. We need better transit links to Gloucester park in the north part of my riding. We also need better transit links to Campbell Heights industrial park in neighbouring south Surrey. This is what I am hearing from businesses in those areas. They say they cannot get workers. Fourth, let us train our young people to have the skills and knowledge that employers require. Let us also get more immigrants in. Let us speed up the credentialing approval process, particularly for the trades so we get more immigrants knowing how to build houses so they can build the cities they are going to live in. If we do not solve the housing affordability crisis, we will not be able to tackle inflation. I am hearing from many people in my riding who are concerned that the government is dismissive about the inflationary pressures they are feeling. They hear the government saying that inflation in 2022 is only transitory because of COVID-related supply chain disruptions and it will all be gone soon. The government also points out that inflation is a global phenomenon. I suppose the implication is that there is not much it can do about it. It also says that even though inflation is at 5.7%, it is not as bad as the rate in other countries, the implication being that there is probably not much it has to do about it. People in my riding are very concerned. I was talking to a farmer just the other day who is deeply concerned that inflation is becoming embedded in our economy and is not just transitory. He pointed out that the cost of delivering his specialty products from Langley to Calgary has doubled from $3,200 per truckload to $6,000. That is if he can even get truck drivers, because there is a shortage of them, and if he can get trucks, because there is even a shortage of trucks. There we go. We have a shortage of workers and equipment. We also have ever-increasing energy costs and an increase to the Liberal government's carbon tax coming at the end of this week. All that leads to inflationary pressures. It is time to unleash the power of the free market again so that our businesses can make more, produce more and pay more wages to more workers, because there is nothing better for the economy than workers taking home a good paycheque. This is what a Conservative government would do. We would unleash the powers of the free market to solve these economic problems and find a much better balance. That is the balance we are looking for, and sadly Bill C-8, an act to implement certain provisions of the economic and fiscal update from the government, is missing that mark.
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  • Mar/28/22 4:20:34 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-8 
Madam Speaker, the cost of everything under the NDP-Liberal government is getting too damn high. Today we are debating Bill C-8: the government's fiscal update from this past December. December feels like a lifetime ago for me, and I know it feels like a lifetime ago for millions of Canadians. A lot has changed since then, and the tack taken by the government in this legislation shows just how poorly prepared it is for the new reality that we live in, which has changed from just a few months ago. The reality is that inflation is at record highs not seen in over 30 years, and not in my lifetime. The reality is that commodity prices, such as oil, natural gas, copper and steel, just to name a few, are hitting record new highs when adjusted for inflation. These highs in many ways are somewhat beneficial for parts of our economy, but also threaten other parts of our economy and the world economy. The reality is that Canada's real estate sector is probably the most overvalued asset class anywhere in the world. Canadians, especially members of my millennial generation, are either priced out of the housing market altogether or have become so over-leveraged in the effort to get that first home that they are putting themselves in serious financial danger, particularly with rising interest rates. If we see a correction in our real estate sector, it is going to be tremendously bad for members of my generation who are just getting into the housing market for the first time. Given the challenges that I have outlined, I would like to think that the government would want to make an approach and an effort to help Canadian families through this difficult time, but the fact is that as of April 1, only a few days away, the NDP-Liberal government is pledging a further increase to the carbon tax, from $40 a tonne to $50 a tonne. That is a whopping 25% increase, and this price increase will result in more taxes on Canadian families and small businesses at a time when they simply cannot afford them. The government has told us many times to wait a minute: the carbon tax is revenue-neutral, and all funds that have been collected are returned to the provinces and the people they are collected from. However, we heard testimony recently from the Parliamentary Budget Officer that has indicated the carbon tax's effect on the total economy means that six out of 10, or about 60%, of Canadian families are worse off because of the carbon tax. We are seeing that, out of the funds that are collected, only about 90% of the total is being returned directly to families, and over the past number of years several provinces have been significantly shortchanged in what they were supposed to get. The government has been bragging about its new plan for the climate action incentive rebates, saying that it is moving from a one-time annual payment to quarterly payments. I am going to list just why that is not something that one would really want to be bragging about. Folks in Alberta and other provinces who used to get their full climate action rebate after they filed their tax returns are now having to wait several more months just to get that one quarterly payment. I understand that there might be a benefit in stretching the payments out into four quarterly payments throughout the course of the year, but what we know in this highly inflationary environment is that the value of a dollar today is very rapidly diminishing. By spreading this payment out into quarterly payments, the government is actually nickel-and-diming Canadians. It is helping the government's bottom line because it is able to print those dollars at full value and then, over the course of the year with these quarterly payments, it is paying Canadians less money in real value than if it had just issued them a one-time payment. With inflation roiling, this whole shell game about moving from a single climate action incentive payment to quarterly payments is really diminishing value for Canadian families. It is time for the NDP-Liberal government to stop shortchanging these families and show us the money. I will move on to what is happening around the world and how the government is not preparing Canada now, and has not prepared Canada for the past six years. Our European allies and our allies around the world are struggling with their dependence on Russian oil and gas. The Minister of Natural Resources said the government can only offer a measly 300,000 barrels a day of additional production. That is to offset nearly 10 million barrels of lost Russian production. We need to revise the meaning of a drop in the bucket and put Canada's name right in there, because it is simply not enough. Meanwhile, for the past six years under the Liberal government, Canada has failed to complete a major pipeline. We have failed to construct a single liquefied natural gas export facility on our coast, and permits for new oil and gas projects have been stalled indefinitely. I think of the Teck Frontier mine, for example. Another example that is more current is the critical Bay du Nord project that is absolutely vital for the economic health of Newfoundland and Labrador. This is oil that, in the words of the previous minister of natural resources, who is from Newfoundland and Labrador, is the cleanest in the world. It is also oil that would not require the construction of new pipelines, because it is literally on the water. It is a no-brainer, yet the government continues to dither on approving this critical project. We have inflation. We have more taxes. We have projects that are not being approved. They are not moving forward or not being approved at all. Now, we have this unscientific Liberal-NDP vaccine mandate that is really starting to bite our economy. Farmers across Canada, including in my riding, are starting to enter the very busy shipping season, with a lot of our exports heading south to the United States. From before the pandemic until now, the rate to move these goods by truck has nearly doubled. Those farm families who can actually get people to move their products are lucky because it is very difficult to even find a trucker. There was a shortage of about 18,000 truckers before the pandemic and that number has exploded. There are about 16,000 additional truckers we have lost because of vaccine mandates. A lot of unvaccinated truck drivers are solo truckers from the United States who Canadian farmers have come to depend upon to move our goods during this busy time of year because of our integrated supply chains. Instead, because of our border mandates, these truckers are choosing to stay home. It is costing our economy hundreds of millions of dollars. I come from a farm family, and this is a very real reality that families are facing. These truckers are not coming up from the United States. We are not getting our products moved south of the border. It is a real fact on the ground. The food security of our North American supply chain has been put at serious risk. The cost to produce fertilizer is skyrocketing. The government has even announced plans, as I said earlier, to make it more expensive to produce fertilizer. With nearly a quarter of the world's wheat and other cereal crop production at risk due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, what the Government of Canada is doing is simply reckless and irresponsible. The world not only needs Canada's energy; it needs Canada's food. We have the ability to be an agricultural superpower, but instead the NDP-Liberal government wants to manage the decline of some of our most important traditional industries. I understand that members of the government have said they do not want to take lessons from Conservatives, but they do not need to take lessons from Conservatives to look at what people are doing in the provinces and in countries around the world that are even more left-wing than the government. Spain, for example, just announced today that it was cutting the fuel tax on gasoline by 20 cents, meaning 20 cents to the euro. We have the NDP provincial government in British Columbia that announced a rebate for families to help them out at the pumps. It is temporarily cutting fuel taxes because it recognizes that, during this inflationary period, families are hurting. It is offering families further rebates on home heating. We are seeing that in Alberta. It is especially suspending further tax increases such as we will see on April 1 with the Liberal carbon tax. Families cannot afford these tax increases on food, home heating and transportation fuels. That is why Conservatives are calling on the government to use the windfall that it is receiving from these high commodity prices and from its inflationary spending to lower taxes on families. We know that the cost to service this increasing debt, and to pay down this debt in the future, is only going to be a further burden on Canadian families. lt is time to use whatever resources we can to help Canadian families with broad-based tax relief: not boutique tax credits like we see in this bill, but broad-based relief that we know will disproportionately help low- and middle-income earners. We know that cuts to fuel taxes and cuts to consumption taxes have a bigger impact on family budgets for those who make under $50,000 or $100,000. Conservatives are focused on delivering tangible benefits for these working-class Canadians who are increasingly struggling and living paycheque to paycheque. In closing, Bill C-8 has failed to provide the targeted tax relief that families need at this time. It has failed to speed up these resource projects. It has failed to deal with high inflation. That is why the Conservatives cannot support it.
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  • Mar/28/22 4:51:46 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-8 
Madam Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to get up on Bill C-8 and talk about some of the financial expenditures the government has made and some of the ones it is talking about in this bill. I want to recognize that this is the first time I have been able to get on my feet since the announcement of the Liberal-NDP coalition. I know those in the sea of orange that I see across the aisle are still adjusting to being new NDP backbenchers. I know that is going to be difficult with the NDP prime minister we have now. I would say that this will be a big impact on the way the government spends going forward, and we are talking about Bill C-8 right now, which is the addition of the economy and fiscal update of 2021. Let us just say that we, as Conservatives, are opposed to Bill C-8 because it has another $70 billion in inflationary spending. We know that every time the government goes to the money presses and prints a whole bunch of new $20s, $50s, $100s, thousands, millions and billions of dollars, it drives up inflation in this country because we have too much currency in circulation. We also know that, during this pandemic, out of all of the COVID spending we have had, $176 billion was not even related to the pandemic. There is $176 billion that has gone into Liberal pet projects and that has increased our national debt to where it sits today at $1.2 trillion. We are talking about a national debt that is now almost double since the Liberals came to power in 2015. That is beyond belief and something I do not think any of us ever expected. We know that we are sitting in a world today where we are seeing hyperinflation caused by everything from supply chain disruptions to Russia's war in Ukraine, something that is very near and dear to me with family and friends back in Ukraine dealing with it, knowing that there are going to be extra costs and burdens that we have to carry as a country to help out the people of Ukraine, those fighting the war against Putin and those fleeing the violence, the carnage and the atrocities being committed against the people of Ukraine. Every dollar that we spend today is precious. We have a fiduciary duty to the taxpayer to ensure that their money is being spent wisely and that we are making the greatest benefit to society here in Canada and around the world. That is why investing in everything from national defence to humanitarian relief efforts, to what we do at home to make life better for Canadians, is important. Unfortunately, that has not happened under the Liberal-NDP government. Mr. Mark Gerretsen: You've got it right, the Liberal-NDP. Mr. James Bezan: Madam Speaker, I'll say the NDP government, just for the benefit of the member for Kingston and the Islands. I will talk about how his NDP government has been irresponsible in how it spent the money and how there has been so much money thrown into circulation it has created hyperinflation. The biggest impact is, of course, on housing. We have seen housing prices increase by 85% in Canada in the past six years. A house that was worth $435,000 six years ago is now worth $810,000. That is the average price in Canada. For those of us who own homes and are going to sell down the road, that is great, but for my kids, for the generation of twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings who hope to have the ability to buy a house, just as we did when we were in our twenties, they cannot afford it now. There is the extra stress test that has been put in place by the government, which banks now use on new lenders, and they cannot even get a mortgage. We continue to see inflation eat away at their take-home pay. That goes to everything from housing to what we are seeing in food and what we are seeing with gas prices now. A lot of that, of course, is related to sanctions against Russia's oil sector. Oil and gas in Russia have to be sanctioned and sanctioned hard. We also know that gas prices here are laden with taxes, especially the carbon tax, which is going up on April 1. The Parliamentary Budget Officer's report just documented that Canadians, especially rural Canadians and western Canadians, lose big time with the carbon tax. In Manitoba, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is saying that the carbon tax costs an average family an extra $1,100 a year out of pocket, and they are not getting money back. It is $1,100 out of pocket, and that is on top of the food inflation that we are seeing right now that is already up, this year alone, $1,000 per family. We are talking $2,100 because of excess inflation, especially on food, and $1,100 on the carbon tax. Rural Canadians are hurt even worse, because we have to drive to get anywhere. I have an agriculture background. My brothers, my son-in-law, my daughter, they are all farmers. They do not get any tax breaks with the carbon tax. To dry grain, they have to pay the carbon tax, and it runs into tens of thousands of dollars a year. That takes money out of their profit margin, but it also drives up the cost of food. It exacerbates food inflation. We just heard from a couple of members who spoke before me, talking about the concern about food shortages. In Ukraine, we are talking about the bread basket of Europe. Here we have a real food crisis on the horizon. If Ukraine does not get its crops in the field, and it is very doubtful with the war going on that it will, there is going to be such a shortage of corn, wheat, sunflower, canola and soybeans. It is going to short the entire world market. We need to step up and do even more, just as we did in World War II when Canada produced even more wheat and fed the world. We are going to have do this again. The carbon tax, on everything from propane, natural gas and diesel fuel, along with the impacts of higher fertilizer prices will impact input costs. I do not know if members on the NDP-Liberal government side realize that the number one ingredient in making nitrogen fertilizer is natural gas. Those companies that produce nitrogen fertilizer have to pay the entire carbon tax, and they are getting nothing back. That is all passed on down to the farmer. Now we have Ukraine and the sanctions against Russian fertilizer, which produces nitrogen and phosphorous and potassium, which is going to be in even more short supply. Even though farmers are going to see higher commodity prices, we know that the higher input costs, largely created by excessive government taxation through the carbon tax and other means, will drive down the profit margins. Instead of enjoying higher commodity prices, they will still be struggling to get by day to day. In Bill C-8, there is some money in here that is doing things we have to call into question. There is $300 million out of the consolidated revenue fund to support more COVID-19 proof of vaccine initiatives. There is no plan or description on how that $300 million is going to be spent. There is another $1.72 billion for more COVID testing. Again, there is no description. Is this another Frank Baylis situation, where we have Liberal insiders and Liberal friends getting sole-source government contracts and making millions and millions of dollars? We are spending $300 million on proof of vaccination programs. Why? Mandates are coming off. The restrictions in all the provinces are ending, and here we are going to invest more money into more federal proof of vaccinations. The government should really start listening to Canadians and listening to the provinces. It is time to actually start taking off these mandates and allow people to travel again. It is time to remove the trucker mandate, because that is something that was never required to happen in the first place. It does not protect public health in any way, shape or form. All it did was create the protest and ultimately hurt supply chains again. I am glad to be able to stand here and say I am opposed to Bill C-8. I am glad to join with my colleagues in pointing out all the difficulties that it presents and how this undermines our economy here in Canada.
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  • Mar/28/22 5:34:09 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-8 
Madam Speaker, I do not think the hon. member understood my speech, because the point I made was that when the entire world is suffering from inflation, there is no standing-still point, no reference point. When all of the world is experiencing inflation, we have a hard time judging what our inflation actually is. There are some really exciting things happening around the world, particularly with Bitcoin, which may be the instrument that will enable us to measure what a particular country's currency is doing relative to inflation, because Bitcoin is tied at 21 million total, so it is not inflationary, unlike other currencies. There are some really cool things that are happening around Bitcoin and inflation, and I hope we will be able to continue that discussion as well in this place.
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