44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 29, 2022 10:00AM
- Sep/29/22 11:50:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not think my colleague will be surprised to learn that negotiating with a Liberal government can sometimes be very disappointing.
In a negotiation, there are two sides. We did our best to make sure that we could move forward wherever there was some common ground.
It is disappointing that the Liberals are not New Democrats and that they do not want to do all the things we want to do. However, we fully understand that Canadians have the right to elect a Parliament and that it is up to us to fight for everything we can accomplish. It is disappointing—
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- Sep/29/22 11:51:47 a.m.
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My apologies, but we will have to leave it at that.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona.
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- Sep/29/22 11:51:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to start today by expressing my disappointment that what we are doing here today is talking about this motion, on the eve of the second annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, at a time when indigenous people in this country do not have clean water, do not have adequate housing and do not have their basic human rights met, and at a time in this country when indigenous people are finding the graves of their children. On the eve of that day, this is what the Conservative Party has brought forward.
I am shocked by this, but I want to start by telling a story. Something happened yesterday. Yesterday, I was talking to a Conservative member, and no, we were not on screen and it was not in public. She asked me why we got into the supply and confidence agreement with the Liberals. She asked me what was in it for us. That is how she put it. I sort of laughed and said that maybe she needed to sit with that for a minute and think about it. Then all last night, I thought about it. Does she really not get why we did that? Was that really not something she could comprehend?
What it comes down to for me is that we did it because we were trying to get help for Canadians. We did it because we were trying to get dental care, pharmacare, environmental care and support for workers. It was for Canadians. We did not do it to win. We did not do it to get points off the Liberals. We did not do it to increase our power. We did it for Canadians.
As we stand in the House and debate this motion, which I will get to, I want us all to remember that every member of the Conservative Party of Canada has access to a dental care program that is gold-plated. Every member has access to a dental care program for themselves and their children, and the Conservatives are voting against just the bare minimum for other Canadian families in the country. For me, that shows what we are dealing with; that shows who we are talking about.
As members of this place, we all have such privilege. We have such voice. We have such opportunity. We all have access to benefits and wages that regular Canadians do not have, and we have an obligation, when we stand in this place, to think of those people and make sure that all Canadians have access to those things, the same things we have and our families have.
With this motion, the Conservatives are trying to mislead Canadians. They are trying to turn “tax” into a four-letter word. I know and members know that “tax” is not a four-letter word. It is, in fact, a three-letter word, but we will get to that.
They are trying to convince Canadians that they are on their side with this motion, but we are not fooled. Canadians are not fooled. The Conservatives continue to side with big business and are throwing Canadians under the bus with this motion.
One thing I do like about the motion is that it gives us an opportunity to talk about taxation. We do not talk about taxation often enough in this place. However, this motion avoids the most important questions: Who is paying and what are they getting for that money?
Right now, the tax burden in Canada is on Canadian families. It is on the shoulders of working families. That is not fair. It means that even if they have two incomes, it is hard to make ends meet. It has resulted in an imbalance in our country. We have a housing crisis that is forcing more and more people onto the streets, rental costs are skyrocketing and young people have no hope of owning their own home.
This was not always the case. There was a time in this country when corporations and the wealthy were shouldering their fair share of the tax burden, and our economy was booming. Workers were able to support their families, and the government was able to provide services because it was raising revenue from sources other than working families. However, successive Conservative and Liberal governments changed that. They have lowered corporate tax rates. They have created tax loopholes. They flipped the tax system on its head.
The last time people and corporations paid the same amount in income tax was 1952. Since then, the corporate tax contribution to our society has gone down steadily. Today, Canadians are paying four dollars for every dollar corporations pay in tax, but not all Canadian are paying that.
While Conservatives and Liberals were cutting tax rates for corporations and handing out corporate subsidies and tax credits, they were also cutting taxes for the richest Canadians and relying instead on regressive forms of taxation like the GST. It is not a secret. Everyone in this House knows that. We all know this, yet here we are debating a simple-minded motion that is designed to trick Canadians into believing that Conservatives have Canadians' best interests in mind. It is a motion that relies on making tax a four-letter word without addressing the most fundamental questions: Who is paying the tax, how much are they paying and why?
Which people governments tax, whom they take money from, whom they take revenue from and what governments spend it on indicate the governments' priorities. Over the past four or five decades, from Liberal governments to Conservative governments to Liberal governments to Conservative governments, on and on, we have seen a distinct pattern and an unbroken history of shuffling the tax burden to working Canadians and cutting taxes for the wealthy and for corporations.
Over and over again, Conservative and Liberal governments have demonstrated who they are and who they care about, and it is not ordinary Canadians. It is not workers. It is not students. It is not seniors. It is not indigenous peoples. It is not people living with disabilities. It is not people who are houseless.
We do not need to look back 50 years to see what is happening in this country. Within three days of the global health pandemic being declared, $754 billion went out to support financial markets, the big banks and the largest corporations. It took the government weeks and then months to get the support to regular Canadians who were actually paying for that $754 billion to big banks. Conservatives are not interested in talking about that.
While I welcome the opportunity to talk about taxation today and while I am disappointed in the simple-mindedness of this motion, I also think we need to talk about how we could reform our tax system. New Democrats have proposed an entire range of reforms, all of which the Conservatives have voted against: a steady return to reasonable corporate tax rates, a pandemic profits tax to recover some of the hundreds of billions that Canadians provided to these corporations, a wealth tax, closing tax loopholes that allow the wealthy to escape Canadian taxes and going after tax cheats.
If we enacted these reforms, we could provide dental care for all Canadians. We could have pharmacare. Canadians would not have to worry any longer about whether they can afford their prescription medicines. We could pay for a housing strategy. We could invest in our future. We could build a better Canada. Tax is not a four-letter word. It just becomes that when politicians are trying to pull the wool over people's eyes.
Finally, I will finish by talking a bit about EI and CPP. Despite what the Conservatives may think, Canadians are not fooled by their conversation and nonsense about whether this is a tax. Canadians see what the Conservatives are doing. I am from Alberta. Albertans see what is happening. We see our provincial government attacking our CPP. It is something I hear about more often from my constituents than anything else. I know how Conservatives are working to destroy the safety net that workers rely on. Workers need their pensions. They need an EI system that works. This is not government money; this is workers' money.
Last week, the EI system reverted back to its broken prepandemic status. The changes that I and my fellow New Democrats fought for so that Canadian workers were not left out in the cold in the pandemic are gone. Instead of pretending that EI and CPP are a burden on working Canadians, I invite the Conservatives to join us to make sure that 100% of workers are able to get the support they need from EI and that 100% of workers can afford to retire with dignity with adequate pension benefits.
Now is not the time for this motion. This political nonsense is designed to get the new leader of the official opposition some airtime and some retweets. Canadians do not want this nonsense. Canadians want all parties in this place to work together to make their lives better.
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- Sep/29/22 12:01:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to pick up on the member's comments in regard to CPP, because CPP, for many years under Stephen Harper, just sat idle. As the prime minister at the time, Stephen Harper refused to meet and work with the premiers to look at ways we could enhance retirement. One of the initiatives that was taken a number of years ago by this government was to work with the provinces to achieve an agreement on CPP.
However, Conservative members often refer to CPP as a tax. In fact, it is not a tax, as the member so rightly said. It is an investment by those individuals who are working today so that they will be able to have a healthier pension tomorrow when they retire.
I wonder if the member could provide her thoughts in regard to how the Conservatives want to label an investment in a future retirement simply as a tax in order to try to stir an emotional pot, which is so misleading.
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- Sep/29/22 12:02:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not always find myself agreeing with the member, but today I do—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Ms. Heather McPherson: I will let my colleagues finish their little rage fit over there.
I do not know if the member is aware as he is not from Alberta, but in Alberta, our UCP government is actually talking about taking our Alberta pensions away from the CPP, which is very dangerous. This is something that so many Canadians depend on for a dignified retirement. I do not think it is near sufficient the way it is, but the immorality and dangerous things that are being put forward by the Conservative Party with regard to our pensions are very disturbing.
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- Sep/29/22 12:03:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am honoured to stand on my feet to ask a question on behalf of the constituents of Regina.
However, just to correct the record, the NDP literally signed an agreement with the Liberals, so those members are usually in agreement. There is a hard copy of their signature agreeing to prop up this government until 2025, so that is one falsehood.
I listened to the member's speech and she constantly talked about how Canadians are paying too much and how everyday, ordinary Canadians are taxed too high, yet she is going to vote against a motion that has tax cuts in it for everyday Canadians.
Secondly, she tried to make the agreement they signed with the Liberals a relevant agreement and she talked about why they signed it, but relevance is an issue for the NDP right now. The NDP are so irrelevant in Canada that the Saskatchewan NDP will not even let its leader come and speak at the Saskatchewan NDP convention. He was uninvited to the home of Tommy Douglas. What they—
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- Sep/29/22 12:04:42 p.m.
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We are going to the answer.
The hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona.
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- Sep/29/22 12:04:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I just want to say to the member that I am very thankful that I was able to do what I could to make sure that children in Saskatchewan are able to access dental care.
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- Sep/29/22 12:05:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe that the Conservatives are moving this motion today because real solutions are much more complex. There should be more thought put into how to create wealth while protecting the environment and, above all, how to share this wealth.
We heard about populism today and, to my great surprise, a Conservative colleague said he was proud to be a populist. I almost fell off my chair, but these are sturdy chairs. My question is simple.
Does my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona, who I hold in high regard, agree with me that this Conservative motion proposes simplistic and populist solutions to a complex problem?
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- Sep/29/22 12:05:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. We have worked very well together on a number of issues, and I find that we align. I suspect him of being NDP in fact.
In terms of his question, I think it is true. It is very similar to what the member for Elmwood—Transcona said. It is dangerous when the Conservative Party brings forward motions like this that are filled with rhetoric and that are filled with disinformation. That is a dangerous thing, and we have a responsibility as parliamentarians to not allow the dialogue, the debate in this place, to be at that level. We need to elevate it, and this motion does nothing to assist with that.
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- Sep/29/22 12:06:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will split my time with the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.
Canadians cannot afford the current Liberal government. The NDP-Liberals have made the cost of living so expensive that people are being forced to choose between heating their homes, putting gas in their cars and feeding their families. That is why the Conservative motion today calls on the government to immediately stop new taxes on gas, groceries, heating and paycheques. That would mean cancelling its planned carbon tax increase and their planned tax hikes on paycheques, which are all defined on the Liberal government's own website as taxes.
The numbers are stark. A Canadian making $60,000 a year went from paying $3,400 a year in taxes under the previous Conservative government to $4,169 in taxes today. The average Canadian family now spends more of their income on taxes than they do on food, clothing and shelter combined, and this share is going to keep escalating under the current Liberal government. That is morally wrong, and it is all a consequence of bad policy.
The cost of everything is skyrocketing. Families are spending $1,200 more a year to put food on the table. Housing prices have spiralled out of control, and rising interest rates mean that half of young Canadians, 56%, who are looking to buy their first home have put their plans on pause or given up altogether.
Rent for a one-bedroom home in Toronto is over $2,300 a month, and post-secondary students are living in homeless shelters. One in six small businesses are considering closing permanently, while almost two-thirds are still carrying debt from the last two years, in large part because of decisions made by governments. Of course, there is also the ever-increasing carbon tax that the Liberals promised would stay at a certain level, but it is going to blow way past that and way past what they claimed.
The Liberals keep saying this tax gives Canadians more back than they spend on it, but of course, the Parliamentary Budget Officer completely debunked that claim. The reality is that 60% of Canadians will not get back more than they put into it, and of course, courtesy of this particular Liberal government, Albertans are the hardest hit, paying $2,282 more than they get back.
However, the carbon tax rebate is effectively the Liberal government using working-class Canadians as a 0%-interest loan. Proceeds are not returned, and it costs Canadians the exact cost of inflation for every month that they do not have their money, plus the cost of lost potential investment income.
For example, using what we all now know is actually a conservative inflation number of 3.4%, which was inflation in 2021 and has more than doubled this year, plus a conservative 2% rate of return on investments, and adding that to the average 2021 carbon tax cost for an Albertan of $1,585, it is almost $86 that has just disappeared, money that these Canadians will never get back and money these Canadians could have used to pay for their grocery bill that week or fill up their gas tanks. The Liberals are going to make these losses worse and keep taking more and more away from Canadians.
Conservatives are focused on Canadians who are struggling with this Liberal-manufactured cost of living crisis.
Coralea from Elk Point wrote to me. Her son has ADD and several other learning difficulties. To deal with these challenges, she sent him to a school about half an hour away from where her family lives. They were able to carpool with other families, and her husband had a well-paying job in the oil patch, but the Liberals’ war on the oil and gas sector changed all of that.
Drilling rigs shut down, companies closed, investment dried up and projects were cancelled, all because of the risk and uncertainty created by the Liberal government, and unfortunately, like tens of thousands of other workers directly employed by the energy sector, Coralea’s husband lost his job. He did find another job local to their home, but it paid him a third of what he was making. Coralea started a housekeeping business so their family could make ends meet, but that business was wiped out during the last two years.
A few months ago, Coralea's son’s school called with a plan for the next four years that would actually see her son graduate with a diploma and his first-year apprenticeship, but she had to tell them that her son is not returning next year, because the skyrocketing cost of gas to drive an hour back and forth twice a day, is no longer feasible on their reduced income.
Coralea is not a Canadian who can afford to buy a fancy $60,000 Tesla. She cannot even afford to rewire her home to accommodate the charge. She cannot afford to have an electric car that does not work in the snowstorms and in -40°C weather that people in Lakeland often experience. She cannot afford the taxes the Liberal government keeps imposing and hiking on Canadians.
Another constituent, Steve, who is a senior living in Vermilion, told me he received both CPP and OAS, both payments are indexed to inflation. The Liberals will tell us that seniors living on these programs are protected from cost of living increases and inflationary pressures, but that is just not the case. Under half of Steve’s monthly gas bill is for the actual gas he uses. A full quarter of his bill goes to taxes, over $50 a month.
For the first two quarters of the year, single adults received just over $250 in carbon tax rebates. Steve would pay $300 in taxes on his gas bill alone at the same time. He pays carbon taxes on his electricity bill, carbon taxes on his groceries and carbon taxes on the fuel he needs to fill up his truck. Steve is going to be taxed out of his retirement at this rate. He told me, “This carbon tax is killing me””, and asked me to keep fighting against this “nonsensical and needless taxation.”
Then there is 25-year-old Austin from Vegreville, who should have a bright future ahead of him. He should be ready to start his life, buy a home and plan a family if he wants. Instead, he has to decide on what bills he pays every month and whether he can afford groceries at the same time. His car ran into some issues, costing him $850, $850 that he cannot afford when gas prices have doubled and his gas and electricity bills are costing him $400 a month. Austin works two jobs, at Walmart and at a local indoor arena. His girlfriend is 21 and works in early learning and child care. He is really worried about their future and he stood up. He told me to, “Scrap the carbon tax...Stop the spending, soften the blow of inflation, and actually make the middle class pay less tax and actually help us get ahead, not send us backwards.”
We could all go on about this from our constituents: from Jason, who runs a small public golf course in New Brunswick, who paid an extra $6,000 in fuel from 2020 to 2021 and is anticipating another $7,500 increase this year; to Linda, a widowed senior, who is still working as a school bus driver because she cannot afford to heat her home and put gas in her car; to Fred, who told me of a young family he sits beside every week at hockey practice that now has to choose which of their kids can play this coming season because the cost of travelling to games has become too much.
The cost of living crisis imposed by the Liberals is not “transitory”, it is not “Vladimir Putin’s inflation” and it is not “a supply chain issue.” It is inflation created because the government has consistently spent well beyond its means and ignored all Conservative warnings that its out-of-control spending would lead to higher prices of basic necessities for all Canadians.
The cost of living crisis driven by the government’s spending and tax increases on gas, groceries, home heating and paycheques is forcing the Canadians who I represent to choose between heating and eating, to choose which of their kids can go into sports or if they can at all, to choose whether they can afford to see their grandchildren, to jeopardize their children’s future because they cannot afford the costs anymore. This has to stop. The government’s reckless spending, its attacks on working Canadians and its continued tax hikes are ruining lives. That is why the motion today is so important. Canadians literally cannot afford the Liberals anymore.
As our new leader, the member for Carleton, has urged them for years, the Liberals must reverse course, find savings in government spending and balance the budget so all that debt is not passed on to future generations with nothing to show for it. It needs to stop fining, demonizing and firing Canadians whose personal medical decisions were not acceptable to the Prime Minister; stop destroying lives and livelihoods of Canadians by driving away investment, handcuffing the development of Canada’s natural resources in agriculture sectors, anchors to our economy, with its anti-business, anti-private sector, high-taxing red tape agenda; and commit today to no new taxes on gas, groceries, home heating and paycheques.
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- Sep/29/22 12:16:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a number of occasions, I have asked the Leader of the Opposition to explain his position on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. The Canadian public deserves to know.
He pulled a stunt a number of months ago, I believe five or six months ago, where he bought a shawarma with Bitcoin. That shawarma cost him the effective rate of $10 Canadian at the time. If he were to buy that same shawarma today, it would cost him $22.35, given the devaluation of Bitcoin.
I am wondering if the member can provide her comments, since her leader will not, on where she stands on Bitcoin or will she stand up and refuse to even utter the words “Bitcoin” or “cryptocurrency”, like the Leader of the Opposition has done every time he has been asked this question.
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- Sep/29/22 12:17:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is striking that the government has been in power for seven years, and has a deal to stay up to 10 years, and the consequence so far has been almost never seen before skyrocketing prices on all basic essential necessities on literally everything.
Members of the government stand in the House of Commons and offer their thoughts, prayers, hope and compassion to Canadians facing the cost-of-living crisis, which they admit, yet the member wants to talk about everything and anything other than their own record and the cost-of-living crisis that they have created.
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- Sep/29/22 12:17:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is my first opportunity to get in on the debate, although I have been listening to it for hours. I would like to ask the hon. member for Lakeland a question that I have been wanting to ask since the hon. opposition House leader, the former Speaker of the House, made his speech.
The context in which the Conservatives put this forward is somehow that Canada, alone in the world, did quantitative easing, borrowed a lot of money to keep currencies afloat, to keep economies afloat. I want to refer her to the reports of the International Monetary Fund back in June 2020. All the economies of the G20 took the same steps. All of them, as well as ourselves, did quantitative easing. We can question whether these were good policies, but I would ask her to think about this.
If the member's current leader had been prime minister during the pandemic, would the Conservatives have decided to reject Boris Johnson's policies, reject policies of other ideologically aligned Conservative governments around the world and chart a—
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- Sep/29/22 12:18:58 p.m.
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The hon. member for Lakeland.
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- Sep/29/22 12:19:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the reality is this. The Prime Minister has spent more than every other prime minister combined in Canadian history. That is a consequence of the government's out-of-control spending through budget after budget. It is not just a consequence of the last two years, frankly.
I think Canadians want to see their elected representatives take responsibility for the government's policy agenda, which is making life too expensive and unaffordable, causing Canadians to struggle to make ends meet and causing great anxiety and fear about their futures. It just is mind boggling to me to hear elected representatives from other parties acknowledging the cost-of-living crisis, but taking no responsibility whatsoever and refusing to vote in favour of what is an obvious and immediate tangible measure that could provide relief to every single struggling working and everyday Canadian in every part of the country.
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- Sep/29/22 12:20:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I share the frustration of my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona that the Conservatives seem intent on mischaracterizing pension contributions as taxes. Both of my parents are pensioners. One thing I hear about frequently from seniors in northwest B.C. is how difficult it is to make ends meet on old age security, on the minimal public pensions they receive.
Does my colleague from the Conservative Party agree, first, that Canada's seniors deserve a significant increase to old age security; and, second, that this increase should accrue not just to seniors over 75 but to all seniors?
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- Sep/29/22 12:20:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is another area where it is very striking to see the gap between the words of members of other parties, their actions and the actual outcomes of their policy agenda. The reality is this. The high taxing, high spending, high deficit policies of both the NDP and the Liberals disproportionately harm low-income Canadians; people on fixed incomes, seniors; the working poor; and the most disadvantaged people right across the country. Their policy agenda hurts them the most. The Conservatives are the ones offering a real solution to provide—
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- Sep/29/22 12:21:38 p.m.
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Resuming debate, the hon. member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.
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- Sep/29/22 12:21:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today we are talking about inflation, which is taking a toll on Canadians. This inflation was entirely foreseeable. The government could not keep printing stack after stack of money and not expect any consequences.
The ratio between the money supply and our GDP has increased drastically lately. It is unfortunate that nothing was done earlier on to regain control of the money supply. From the start, the government has been blaming inflation on the global situation, more specifically, supply chain disruptions. True, these disruptions are having an impact on supply and demand, but there are many other factors for which the Liberals have been responsible from the moment they took office, and those factors are behind this economic situation.
I do not want to be all doom and gloom today, but the Liberals' policies are leading us right for a cliff. There are two things that stand out to me regarding the situation we are now. The first is the Liberal government's inordinately large deficit, which is undermining Canada's financial stability and, even worse, endangering the economic prosperity of future generations.
When the Liberal Party formed government in 2015, Canada was in an enviable economic position. Not only did we have one of the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios in the G7, but we also had a budget surplus accompanied by positive economic growth. Canada was one of the best countries to invest in.
When the Liberals took office, they embarked on a spending spree that was unnecessary, considering the economic context. Canada's debt rose dramatically, going from $626 billion in 2014 to $1.049 trillion in 2021. Of course, part of that increase is a result of managing the pandemic. I want to talk about that management, though. Canada borrowed more than any other industrialized country, except Japan, and got little in return. Canada ranked 21st out of 33 industrialized countries in terms of average economic growth in 2020 and 2021, with the fifth-highest average unemployment rate.
Even so, this is still a level of debt that, all in all, could be managed well with historically low interest rates. However, by being short-sighted and failing to plan ahead, which is a recurring theme in the Liberal Party, the government was playing with fire. This situation could not continue if certain parameters changed, and now they are changing. As interest rates rise, servicing the debt will become increasingly expensive. Government forecasts will have to be revised.
The yield curve is inverted, probably signalling that a recession is coming. The 10-year treasury yield is rising very quickly, pointing to a growing lack of confidence in the Canadian treasury. Lastly, the increase in 10-year treasury bonds is making Canadian debt more expensive.
Who is going to pay for this debt? Who is going to pay the interest on it? Will it be Canadians? Can the government assure the House today that it will not raise taxes and other charges on Canadians, who are already struggling to fill up their cars and put food on the table?
The Liberals' silence speaks for itself. Why is that? This brings me to my second point about why the Liberals are responsible for the current situation. The Liberal government has been waging war on Canada's energy sector since 2015, which has made it hard for us to respond to global energy shocks. Canada has the third-largest oil reserves in the world and the 18th-largest natural gas reserves. Not only do we have quantity, but we also have quality, because we produce oil and gas more cleanly than countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
With energy and gas prices soaring, let us imagine what Canada could do if it were an energy superpower. First, we could put more barrels on the global market, which would increase the supply and ultimately lower prices. Second, we could meet the energy needs of countries that really need it right now. I am thinking in particular of our allies in Europe, who are being held hostage by an authoritarian regime that controls the flow of energy into western Europe. Being an energy superpower is not just about meeting local demand, it is also about meeting an international need.
Instead, the Liberal government is trying to convince itself that Canada's energy industry is a thing of the past and that exporting our energy would be difficult because the product is far from the coasts. However, this is the same government that killed off over $100 billion worth of Canadian energy projects and cancelled the development of key infrastructure meant to reach export terminals on the east and west coasts.
President Biden would rather ask Saudi Arabia to increase its production, even though we are the United States' closest neighbour. That is shameful and embarrassing, not to mention hypocritical.
Yes, it is hypocritical, because the Liberals keep talking about fighting climate change, but they have done nothing to stop the supply of dirtier oil from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
Canada's Minister of Natural Resources is talking about increasing natural gas exports to the United States, which will then export it to Europe. How out of touch is that? Instead of putting Canadians to work, developing Canadian expertise and creating Canadian wealth, which would help fight inflation, we are acting as the United States' lackey.
Canada's energy policy is a disaster for Canadians' pocketbooks. It is also a disaster in terms of making a positive contribution to the fight against climate change. Furthermore, it is directly responsible for the significant increase in energy and gas prices.
The government plans to triple the carbon tax soon. Is that still in the cards? Is it really a good idea to increase gas prices when Canadians are struggling to make ends meet?
Gas is essential for transportation, in particular the transportation of food. Last August, food prices rose 10.8% over the previous year, when they were already trending upwards.
Is it reasonable to consider adding an indirect tax on food by increasing the price on carbon at a time when food prices have jumped by nearly 15% in two years? It is utterly ridiculous to even be considering it.
Families are losing faith in the economy and are going deeper into debt. The ratio of household debt to income is now 181.7%. It is not just a question of what rising interest rates will do to Canada's ability to service its debt. We also have to consider what Canadians will do as interest rates continue to rise. How will they be able to pay down their debt if everything gets more expensive and their loans get more expensive but their income does not keep pace with inflation?
We could be headed for some dark days if we do not address this crisis quickly. The government must first provide certainty for Canadians by committing to not increasing taxes of any kind in an attempt to make up for its own oversights, mistakes and inaction.
The current situation paints a bleak picture for Canadians who will end up in debt slavery if this trend continues. It will be extremely difficult for the next generation to buy property. We cannot afford to ignore the economic importance of property. Canadians see it as a symbol of prosperity and independence. For many, it is a retirement fund; for others, it is financial leverage. It is a place to raise a family, the bedrock of society. We have to put families first and give them all the tools they need to prosper.
We are talking about the rising cost of consumer goods, but I would like to conclude with some comments about the other issues hanging over our heads. The 0% interest rate policy was in place for years. How did that affect the structure of Canada's economy? That is a question we have to consider, because our party's motion makes even more sense given how much money was injected into the system and the unnecessary risks that companies and governments take when money really has no value because interest rates are near zero.
To get back to the main point of my speech, the government must give Canadians as much certainty as possible by not increasing their taxes.
I urge all parties to support our motion. To resolve the current inflationary crisis, I urge them to be prudent when it comes to government spending in the future and to stop the war on Canadian energy.
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