44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 27, 2022 10:00AM
- Sep/27/22 11:08:44 a.m.
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Usually, in economics and the humanities, and even in the pure sciences, if you want to solve a problem, you have to define it first. Then, you need to find the sources of the problem. Lastly, you need to address those sources.
The problem is inflation. Is inflation purely a Quebec or Canadian problem? No, every country in the G7 and the OECD is dealing with inflation. That is the first element. Is it the fault solely of the federal government, then? I do not think so. Did it act appropriately on every aspect of the inflation issue? I am not sure, but it does not bear sole responsibility. That is what I want to say.
Then, we see that inflation was at 7% in August and that it dropped a bit because of the price of oil. That means that it is relatively high. Everyone is affected by inflation. No one is immune, but the most hard hit are people on a fixed income: seniors and people with low incomes. We need to focus on these people and try to find solutions to lessen the impact of inflation on their lives. That is the intelligent approach.
That is what the Bloc Québécois is doing. We asked ourselves how we could help these people. Once we have determined what the problem is and who is affected by it, we must determine why we have inflation. There are two factors. One, the demand for goods and services has risen sharply. Interest rates have gone down and federal assistance has been astronomical, which has greatly increased the demand for goods and services. That, in turn, has created inflation. Two, the supply side of the equation has shrunk.
Madam Speaker, I listened respectfully to members of the Liberal Party and I would like them to show some mutual respect, if at all possible.
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- Sep/27/22 4:31:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Foothills. I always learn so much when he is on his feet.
I appreciate the opportunity to rise and debate today.
Make no mistake: Inflation is a very serious concern. Inflation, as we all know, leads to the Bank of Canada raising interest rates, and that creates a whole new number of very serious concerns. Yesterday, before I began writing this speech, I came across a tweet from the Bank of Canada that said, “The high cost of living is felt daily by everyone, particularly people with fixed incomes. To control #inflation, we need higher interest rates to bring it down. By moving quickly now, we can avoid even higher rates later on.”
I have spoken with many of my constituents at length about this issue and continue to hear almost daily from citizens about this serious concern. Based upon what I am hearing, parts of that tweet from the Bank of Canada simply are not accurate. When the Bank of Canada says, “The high cost of living is felt daily by everyone”, it is simply not true. Wealthy individuals, those who have no debt, have told me that while they are concerned, they themselves are not impacted at all. Some have even suggested they are coming out ahead, as their investments, in some cases, are now earning higher interest.
I do not bring this up to pick on the Bank of Canada, but the bank is naive in suggesting that we are all in this together when it comes to higher costs of living. This simply does not affect people with more wealth that way.
To the credit of the Bank of Canada, it does acknowledge that the higher cost of living does seriously impact those on fixed incomes, and that is absolutely true. However, there is another group of citizens the bank ignores, and it is those who carry debt with variable interest rates, also known as the working poor. To them, the higher costs of living are a serious concern. The only greater concern to them, and it is a much greater concern, is the higher interest rates from the Bank of Canada itself.
Last week, I heard from a household in Kelowna that now has to come up with an extra $900 a month to cover the higher interest rates on the mortgage payment. This is a family of four, and they do not have a spare $900 a month sitting around. Few working families do.
I should also point out that the Liberal stress test itself, in some cases, forces people to take a variable interest rate because they do not qualify for a fixed rate. People are often left to make a decision: Do they get into a variable mortgage rate on a house, which is often cheaper than renting? Then they find out that with the interest rates going up, they are barely hanging on.
What are they to do? They could try selling, although there is no guarantee that this would not leave them further in debt. Worse still, there is nothing they could rent for any less than what they are paying in a mortgage. They live in fear that the Bank of Canada will raise rates even further, and who can blame them for being fearful?
What does that situation have to do with our motion today? As the Bank of Canada says in the same tweet, “To control #inflation, we need higher interest rates to bring it down.” However, here is the thing. According to the Liberal government, as we have heard many times now, inflation has nothing to do with it. It is all related to supply chain problems outside of Canada, it claims. For higher gas prices, which we know is one of the stronger drivers of inflation, the Liberals blame Putin. If the Liberals are telling us the truth that all of this is due to factors outside of Canada, how does the Bank of Canada raising interest rates fix international supply chain problems or stop Putin? It does not, of course.
Let us all stop for a moment to ask an obvious question. Given that we have all witnessed how dramatically rising gas prices can drive inflation, is it not a reasonable question to ask what factors drive the price of gasoline that the Liberal government can actually do something about? It turns out we have an obvious answer here: the Liberal carbon tax. In fact, our very own Bank of Canada governor has written a letter on this to the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance. In that letter, he says, “According to the Bank’s calculations, if the charge were to be removed from the three main fuel components of the consumer price index (gasoline, natural gas and fuel oil) it would reduce the inflation rate by 0.4 percentage points.” Just so we are clear, the charge is the charge of the Liberal carbon tax.
There we have it in writing from the Bank of Canada. The carbon tax, at its current rate, adds almost half a percentage point to our inflation. As we know, the Liberal carbon tax is set to triple, even though the Liberals promised before the last election that they would not do that.
I can already hear the howls of outrage from some within the Liberal caucus: “But the rebates, the rebates will triple.” Here is the thing. The rebates, as I have concluded recently in this place in a different speech, may well help some to get ahead. As an example, for the finance minister living in Toronto without a car, she would likely come out a winner, but for people in my riding, living in a community such as Hedley, they will not be so lucky. Why? Because in Hedley there is no high school. There is no middle school. There is no hospital. There are no major grocery stores and few public transit options are available.
People in Hedley have two choices: drive west to Princeton or drive east to Keremeos. Sometimes they may have to drive to Penticton, which is even farther away. That same situation occurs for much of rural Canada.
Why should these people be punished with a carbon tax for living in a community that they can afford to live in? Why should someone be punished with a carbon tax for trying to heat their home in the cold winter months? People with older, poorly insulated homes that cost more to heat do get punished. Punished for what? In British Columbia, where we have Canada's oldest carbon tax, the emissions continue to rise, not unlike federally where the government has missed every single emissions target it has ever set.
In other words, we have a carbon tax that inflicts financial pain as it does not treat people equally. It does not actually reduce emissions, and the Bank of Canada confirms that it actually drives up inflation, which hurts everyone. These are facts that can be verified. Worse, our major trading partners, the United States and Mexico, do not have carbon taxes. The United States is supposed to come out with its own plan to fight climate change, but of course it is doing so with a focus on technological improvements and new standards, not a carbon tax. When the government says that any plan has to include a carbon tax to be taken seriously, how is this line of reasoning expected to be taken seriously when it comes to our largest trading partner, the United States, refusing to add an inflationary divisive measure like a carbon tax?
Why are energy companies like TC Energy focusing more on places in Mexico than their home country, particularly during a moment when the world is clearly in need of more energy, not less?
While North America has seen a drop in energy prices in recent months, one has to ask when the American strategic reserve, by law, has to start refilling. When demand from the American federal government and the American consumers start rippling through our integrated energy markets here in Canada, will we not have wished that we had done more work by Canadian companies and the government to secure our own energy security, rather than the reserves of other countries like the United States and Mexico?
It does not end there. The forestry companies that owned the last three lumber mills that shut down in B.C. did not leave forestry. They have opened three new lumber mills all in the United States where they will pay zero carbon taxes. They will also pay zero of the Liberals' increased payroll taxes as well, but that is a topic for a different debate.
Recently, at the end of August, one of the largest recreational boat builders closed shop in Kelowna. They moved their operations down to Texas and perhaps Mexico. Guess how much carbon tax they will pay there. The answer, of course, is zero.
To recap, it is true that there are some problems outside of our control in Canada but, make no mistake, we have families here right across this country who are barely hanging on and who cannot afford another interest rate hike from the Bank of Canada.
What if there is something else we could do to help the cost of living? There is something we can do and we can do it as soon as possible. Stop the government's plan to triple the carbon tax. This will do two things. It will help lower inflation. Also, it will help increase affordability. It is for these reasons I will be supporting this motion. If the government is not prepared to do those things for Canadians, so be it. However, the government should not pretend that all these challenges are from outside of Canada when indeed we do have a made-in-Canada solution, more so now as winter is coming.
I ask all hon. members to please consider voting in support of this motion. I would also like to pass on my thanks for listening to my comments here today on behalf of my constituents.
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