44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 7, 2022 10:00AM
- Jun/7/22 10:35:16 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to highlight the excellent work of the Leader of the Opposition, who today made a passionate plea on behalf of Canadians who are struggling and having a hard time making ends meet. By moving this motion today, the Leader of the Opposition clearly showed her support for Canadians, families, young people, workers, seniors and everyone affected by the skyrocketing cost of living.
Inflation is going through the roof. The cost of everything is rising more than it has in years. Take, for example, the cost of food, which has gone up about 10% over the past year. That means, on average, the cost of some grocery items has gone up by 20%, 25% or even 30%. Unfortunately, those items are often the ones people need the most. We have not seen prices go up like this since 1981.
The motion that the official opposition brought today is eminently sensible. It calls on the government to listen to Canadians for once and to set partisanship and the Prime Minister's vindictiveness aside in order to do what is right: provide a little relief to Canadians who are struggling to make ends meet.
Over the past few days, the Prime Minister and his ministers, including the Minister of Finance, have all demonstrated a total lack of compassion for what Canadians are going through. We have presented quite a few proposals, all of them just and sincere, to make things more manageable for people. Unfortunately, the government chose to say no to the Conservatives' proposals every time. What worries me is that the Prime Minister's attitude suggests he said no to the Conservatives because these good ideas were coming from the official opposition and the Conservatives. He wanted to punish the Conservatives by rejecting their ideas, which included lowering the gas tax and cancelling the carbon tax hike. Those were logical, eminently sensible proposals.
However, by doing that, the Prime Minister punished Canadians instead. He prevented Canadians from enjoying a bit of a break. He did not hurt the Conservatives, he hurt Canadian families, young Canadians, seniors and workers. That is the reality.
Today, we are giving him the chance to make amends. That is something he can do. We have moved a very sensible motion that the government could support to show a bit of compassion to Canadians. It is his last chance to do so, since this is the last opposition day. This is the last chance a member can move a motion in the House calling on the government to act now to provide some relief for Canadians. Based on what we have heard so far, this likely will not come from the Liberal benches.
The Liberals truly need to come down to earth and get in touch with the reality of Canadians. During question period, we call them out on the increased cost of living, because everything is going up. The price of gas is $2.23 or $2.32 a litre in some places in the country. It is crazy. When we ask them questions about that, the Liberals say that in their budget they lowered child care costs for families, brought in an expensive dental care program, and so on. These are all sorts of things that are likely connected to the coalition agreement the Liberal government made with the NDP, but none of them will do anything at all to help families that are suffering.
I had the opportunity to speak with some people from ORAPE, a food bank in my riding. Over the last few weeks, demand has gone up 10%. More and more people cannot make ends meet and are urgently going to the food bank so they can get a bit of food and make it until the next cheque, because everything costs more.
Workers are telling us that they can no longer afford the gas they need to get to work. Other parents are telling us that they can no longer afford to drive their kids to activities and that they are having to make choices: buy a bit more meat for dinner, or take the kids to a few more activities. This is Canada, in 2022, and families are being forced to make these kinds of choices. If someone had asked me last year if I thought this was possible, I would have said no. Today, this is the reality that many Canadians face.
When we hear the answers from the Prime Minister and ministers, including the Minister of Finance, it is as though none of this exists. They think that inflation is global. It is all over the place, and according to them, Canada is doing a little bit better than everywhere else. However, looking at the numbers, we see that this is because inflation in Canada is not calculated the same way as it is in other countries. We are being told that everything is fine, that Canada is doing better than other countries and that this will continue to be the case. That kind of answer offers absolutely no help to families and the people who are struggling to make ends meet and are forced to make tough choices.
I would remind members that 25% of Canadians have been forced to make tough choices like buying less food to make ends meet, and that 40% of families and Canadians earning less than $50,000 a year are going hungry. When I say “families”, I am not just talking about families with children; I am talking about all kinds of families.
However, when we tell the Prime Minister these things, we are told to look at the latest budget and all the measures that will be introduced several weeks or months from now. We are told to look at the decisions that were made to deliver a budget that clearly proves that this government failed to see the current crisis on the horizon. There is absolutely nothing in the most recent budget to help families now, to help them deal with the crisis of high gas prices, to help people make ends meet. The budget includes a lot of spending for later, but the crisis is happening right now.
Are we going to ask people to keep tightening their belts, to not eat, to make hard choices and not send their children to their activities until these measures are implemented several years down the road? That is unacceptable. We cannot tolerate it. We cannot accept the government acting this way.
That is why we have introduced an eminently sensible motion that calls on the government to temporarily reduce the tax on gas and diesel and give Canadians a break. The price at the pump right now is $2.32 a litre.
In addition, we are calling on the government to scrap the carbon tax increase. They keep telling us that the carbon tax will be given back to families. Until those families receive a cheque, which will not be for the exact amount they paid, they need to put food on the table. That cheque will not give them any.
We are also asking the government to eliminate the punitive measures at airports to help the tourism industry and our small businesses across our regions. That will spur economic activity and put more money in people's pockets. That is the reality.
We have been proposing these measures since January. The various measures included in this motion were presented to the government previously. Each time, the Prime Minister said no. He said no to Canadians in need, to the most disadvantaged Canadians. However, more and more Canadians in the middle class, who are working very hard to stay there, are also finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.
That is why today we are appealing to the government, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP. We are asking them to support our motion, which will give Canadians a bit of a break, something they currently need. I believe it is the right thing to do. We must avoid partisanship and saying no to the Conservatives simply because it is a Conservative motion. It is not a Conservative motion, it is a common sense motion for Canadians.
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- Jun/7/22 2:35:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the party that needs a coherent policy is the Conservative Party, and it just does not have one. As usual, the Conservatives are failing to pick a lane on fiscal policy. Half of the time they like to talk about deficits and complain about government spending, but the other half of the time, like just now, they praise the expensive multi-billion dollar programs put in place by the governments of other countries, so really, what is the fiscal policy of the Conservative Party of Canada?
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- Jun/7/22 2:38:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, once again, the Conservatives need to pick a lane on fiscal policy. Half of the time, they talk about the deficit and complain about government spending, but the other half of the time, they praise expensive programs proposed by other governments. What are the Conservatives actually advocating for: spending or fiscal responsibility?
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- Jun/7/22 4:24:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in saying “a false solution to a real problem”, the hon. member described it better than I did, and I think he is right.
With respect to the revenues, yes, inflation has that effect of giving the revenues a temporary boost, but it is a temporary boost, because once we get the revenues in, the bills start arriving as well, so the costs of running a government are actually going to be much greater because there is necessarily going to be wage inflation, which is essentially what government is.
As to spending the revenues that are coming in, I would not go for that kind of an idea immediately. There have been various relief elements, particularly for seniors, that have been distributed over the last couple of years.
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- Jun/7/22 6:39:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will make this quick. This is the business of supply on the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023, and the member is talking about other things. I am just wondering if we can maybe talk about the estimates and the spending of the government, instead of the stuff that he was talking about for the last five minutes.
Let us talk about money and the spending of money, as we are supposed to be doing today.
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- Jun/7/22 8:28:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what we saw there was like a WWE fight. That last exchange was not real because, while the hon. member stands and talks about his disappointment in the government, the reality is that the only reason the government is able to do any of the spending he decries is because his party is supporting the government.
I will ask a very specific question in an area that the government is not spending money on as I am curious to hear his thoughts. The Liberals made a promise during the election campaign to fund Canada mental health transfers for $250 million last year and $625 million this year. That was the promise the Liberals made during the election campaign. Since that election campaign, they cut a deal with the NDP. Now, when it comes to the spending of the government, that money is not there.
I am wondering if the hon. member could tell us what the NDP negotiated into the budget in order to get their support and what was traded away against the promised funding for the Canada mental health transfer.
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- Jun/7/22 8:34:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was interesting to hear the hon. member's response to my last question. First of all, I like the hon. member. I like the way he carries himself in the House. I take issue with his characterization of my raising mental health as an issue as “a tantrum”.
The hon. member talked about the priorities the NDP negotiated into the spending of the government. It was one of the highest-spending budgets we have ever seen in this country, and if the mental health of Canadians cannot factor into the highest-spending budget in Canadian history, when will it factor into the list of NDP priorities?
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