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Mrs. Laila Goodridge (Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC)

Apr/4/22 12:10:41 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-8

Madam Speaker, it is an absolutely wonderful opportunity to be able to rise today and deliver some remarks on Bill C-8, the economic and fiscal update implementation act, 2021. It is kind of ironic, as I was reflecting on this over the weekend, that I am delivering remarks on the fall economic statement in the spring, but calendars are clearly difficult, and perhaps calendars are hard for the government as well. Many of my colleagues on this side of the House have highlighted challenges. I want to thank the member who spoke just before me, my colleague from Yorkton—Melville, who really highlighted some of the struggles that are faced in rural Canada when it comes to pricing. That is something that is very true, and I would expand it to not just rural Canadians; it is a major struggle for anyone who lives outside of a major centre. In my riding of Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, we do not really have a choice, in many cases, to stay home. I was talking to a few of my colleagues. In my world, everything starts at three hours. It takes three hours to get from Fort McMurray to Lac La Biche and another two and a half hours to get from Lac La Biche to Edmonton, so that is five and a half hours. It takes four and a half hours to get from Fort McMurray to Cold Lake and it takes a couple of hours to get from Cold Lake to Edmonton, so it really does not matter whereabouts we go: It is at least a few hours. That is not even including the more isolated communities in my riding, such as the community of Fort Chipewyan. That is one that I am going to talk about in a bit more depth. Fort Chipewyan is a truly stunning place. If anyone has not had an opportunity to go to Fort Chipewyan, I highly recommend they take a trip. It is truly breathtakingly beautiful. It has the Canadian Shield, the great and powerful Athabasca River, Lake Athabasca and so many opportunities to explore the outdoors. However, it also has some struggles, because it is primarily without roads. It relies on ice roads through the winter as its main supply line. That means that a lot of organizations have to get their groceries and all their supplies for the entire year delivered in a short window of time while the ice road is open. Otherwise, they are relying on barges or flying equipment in. As members can probably imagine, all of those options are quite expensive. When we have a government that continually raises the carbon tax, such as the one we have, one of the struggles is that the cost to transport those goods rises, and then the cost to sell those goods has to rise. Otherwise, the business owners or the organizations have a shortfall. They can only operate under a shortfall or in a deficit for so long before it has some major impacts. I know that the government does not necessarily understand that reality when it comes to budgeting, but most Canadians understand that they really do need to balance their budget or there will be some long-term complications. In Fort Chipewyan, as inflation is going up and the carbon tax is going up, people are seeing substantially higher grocery costs, which is making it quite a struggle for many of the families to get healthy food options. Unfortunately, as members who have travelled through the north might be aware, it is the perishable goods and healthy food choices, including fruit, vegetables and dairy, that tend to be the most expensive in those communities. Therefore, when it comes to anything that is perishable, the inflationary cost is substantially higher because of the additional time to get there, and the community is really having to struggle. In fact, just last week some of the indigenous leaders in the community talked about the global food crisis having a huge impact on the residents in the community of Fort Chipewyan. It is not just an issue in Fort Chipewyan. We see this as an issue in most of our rural, isolated communities. Further away, the communities of Conklin and Janvier are at least 90 minutes from a grocery store. There are convenience stores in those communities, but to get to a real grocery store, people in Janvier have to go at least 90 minutes to Anzac or 90 minutes to Lac La Biche. As fuel prices continue to skyrocket because of the carbon tax, those families see fewer opportunities to get to the grocery store and to buy those healthier food choices. What they are also seeing is that it is having a huge inflationary impact. In fact, the PBO, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, recently said that it appears that the rationale for the additional spending initially set aside as stimulus no longer exists. What we are seeing is just the continuous spending of money. The government is spending and spending without actually looking at what this increase in spending is doing to average Canadian families. This is part of the struggle. Families in my riding are finding it harder to make ends meet. There have been reports that have come out saying that the average family of four will see an additional $1,000 added to their grocery bill. I was thinking about this over the weekend because when I come to Ottawa, even if I go to the most expensive grocery store around, groceries are still less expensive than at the cheapest grocery store in Fort McMurray. I was really thinking about this. We keep repeating, on this side of the House, the fact that groceries are going up by an average of $1,000 for a family of four, but now I am really curious. I am going to try to do some calculations on my end, because I would not be surprised if the average family of four in my riding actually saw a substantially higher amount because of the inflationary impacts and because of the inflation of food prices. These are coupled with more carbon tax, and all that ends up doing is raising the cost of everything. One of the big challenges I think members opposite do not necessarily understand when they raise the cost of carbon taxes on so many of these goods is that, in communities such as Fort McMurray or Fort Chipewyan or other communities throughout most of northern Canada, we cannot just put goods in a warehouse. We have to heat the warehouse, because otherwise the food will freeze and then it will no longer be nutritional and healthy and safe for families. On the flip side of that, we have midnight sun in many northern communities, so we need to have air conditioning through the summer. Otherwise, we will have a struggle where the food will go bad: It will spoil. As the cost of heating and cooling buildings increases, so will the cost to have those business owners get to a place of balance. I think this is one of the big challenges that we face right now. The government continues to spend money, but it is not really looking at how this is impacting families in the north and how this is impacting families in isolated communities all across Canada. It is so much larger than just the families in my riding. It impacts any family that has to travel for anything. I know many members on this side of the House, and I would assume many members on the other side, have to travel a couple hours or more in order to get to doctors' appointments, children's sports competitions and different pieces along those lines, or just to visit friends and family. I think this is one of those challenges that, as we see gasoline prices continuously increasing, families cannot necessarily cope with. They do not have the opportunity to print money like the government does. Those real impacts and those real choices are really a struggle. As a fun piece, I think it is something that our communities really need to understand, and we need to make sure we are doing what we can to have families be able to afford nutritional food. This is especially true throughout the north. I would welcome all members of the House to vote against the bill, because all it is going to do is raise the cost of everything.

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