44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 6, 2022 10:00AM
- Oct/6/22 11:08:34 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House of Commons today to talk about food inflation, which is at its highest in 40 years.
I will talk about the price increases for a few food items. The price of fish has risen by 10.4%; the price of butter, by 16.9%; the price of eggs, by 10.9%; the price of pasta, by 32%; and the price of coffee, by 14.2%. These are only a few examples of the rising prices Canadians are paying for food. The poorest Canadians are the hardest hit. It is only appropriate that we address this problem.
What are the causes of food inflation? The cost of government is increasing the cost of living. The $500-billion inflationary deficit is increasing the cost of the goods we purchase and the interest we pay. Inflationary taxes are increasing production costs for our businesses and farmers, which further contributes to the increase in prices. The more the government spends, the more expensive it gets. This is the result of the costly coalition between the Liberals and the NDP. The solution is to undo the problems the Liberals have caused.
First, we must limit government spending by passing a law that requires politicians to save one dollar for each new dollar spent. This law used to exist elsewhere in the past. In the 1990s, such a law enabled the U.S. government to eliminate its deficit and pay back $400 billion of its debt while creating jobs. After the law was repealed, they started to accumulate deficits once again. This shows that we must impose legal limits on politicians’ spending. Otherwise, they are undisciplined, and consumers pay the price.
Second, we must eliminate inflationary taxes. This government, with the support of the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, wants to triple the carbon tax on farmers, small businesses and truckers, which will obviously drive up the cost of food. Food does not come from the store, but from farms and farmers. In addition, it is transported by truckers. Every time we increase taxes on these people, consumers pay more.
Since farmers can no longer bear the costs, we are importing food from other countries that are creating far more pollution. We would be able to produce the food here, but the taxes on farmers increase costs and make it impossible to produce food in Canada. We should eliminate these taxes to encourage food production here in Canada. We have the best farmers in the world, and we should be able to feed ourselves.
Third, we must eliminate the bureaucratic hurdles that prevent the production of food and other essential goods, as well as the red tape and delays that prevent the construction of housing units, energy production and, of course, food production. Instead of printing money like this government and the Bank of Canada are doing, we should be producing what money can buy: more food, more housing units and more energy, here in Canada. That means that we have to eliminate obstacles, make it easier to get a construction permit and allow people who work hard to achieve their goals.
Rather than simply printing money, let us produce what we need. This policy will make life more affordable and Canada more self-sufficient. That is the goal we will be pursuing as Conservatives.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Foothills, Madam Speaker.
The New Democrats point out in this motion that corporations should pay what they owe. We agree with that. They say there should be increased penalties for price-fixing. We agree with that, too. They think that the agriculture committee should study high food prices and whether there is something called “greedflation”, including inviting grocery store CEOs to the committee. We agree with that, too. That is all very reasonable. Unfortunately, in some ways, it does not go far enough, because they have a very limited view of greed. They think that it only exists in the private sector. They ignore in the motion government greed.
The New Democrats have this fantastical view of human nature. I would not say that it is optimistic or pessimistic; it is both at the same time. They think that human beings are angels when they work for the state, but demons when they work in the private sector, as though greed is part of human nature only in the free market. However, when these same people who work for a company then transfer over to work for a bureaucracy or as politicians, all of a sudden they are purified of all greed and transformed into an entirely different being.
The reality is that human nature is what it is, warts and all, good and bad. There is greed and that greed exists in government as well. When the government expands itself vastly faster than the economy, increasing costs by $500 billion in the last two years alone, $200 billion of which had nothing to do whatsoever with COVID, and when the government, against the warnings of the Conservatives, gives corporations wage subsidies, even though they can afford to pay out dividends to their shareholders and bonuses to their executives, the government is engaging in feeding that greed.
When the government printed $400 billion, causing inflation to spiral out of control to the benefit of the super-rich, who saw their assets inflate, but to the disadvantage of the poor, who then lost purchasing power and watched house prices go out of reach so they could never get out of their parents' basements or out of that 400-square-foot apartment, it was government greed that had caused that transfer of wealth from the have-nots to the have yachts.
I just wish once in a while the NDP, which believes in the endless expansion of the state, would acknowledge the roll that government greed has played in plaguing the country with the highest inflation in 40 years. The cost of government is driving up the cost of living. Half a trillion dollars in new inflationary spending has bid up the cost of the goods we buy and the interest we pay. The inflationary taxes have bid up the cost for businesses and farmers to produce those goods. The more Liberals and New Democrats spend, the more things cost. That is how we got into this mess in the first place.
The Liberals and the NDP, the costly coalition, want to double down on the problem by further increasing the costs on the backs of Canadians by tripling the carbon tax, which will inevitably be passed on to consumers. We cannot tax farmers, truckers and grocers without having those costs pass on to the people at the end of the grocery aisle. We know they will pay those higher prices; we know they already have.
Conservatives say: enough. The time has come to cap government spending and cut government waste so we can phase out the inflationary deficits and taxes, cancel the plan to triple the carbon tax and, instead, deploy technology to make green alternative energy more affordable. Let us bring down the cost of energy, rather than bring it up.
Speaking of which, let us remove the government gatekeepers who make this the 64th-ranked country in the world when it comes to getting a building permit. Sixty-three other countries give them faster. What does that mean? It means that farmers can put up their barns faster. It means that mines, which would produce lithium, cobalt, copper and other minerals for green electricity, must wait longer and, therefore, costs more money. It means that producing clean, green Canadian nuclear energy, etc., could be coming onto the market faster.
Let us get these gatekeepers out of the way, speed up the production and unleash the mighty force of our free enterprise system, so instead of creating cash, we create more of what cash buys and unleash the production of a cleaner, more affordable economy for all our hard-working people.
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- Oct/6/22 11:19:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, CEOs should pay their fair share and pay what they owe, as the motion says. We believe in tax enforcement and we believe the government has done a terrible job cracking down on those who hide their money in offshore accounts and refuse to pay what they owe. The Conservatives do support that, to clearly answer the member's question.
What we do not support is forcing working-class people to pay higher taxes. We do not support higher energy costs. We do not believe that consumers in Vancouver should pay more than $2.40 a litre. We do not support the plan to triple the carbon tax on home-heating oil for Newfoundlanders and to further drive the people of eastern Canada, 40% of whom are in energy poverty, into more poverty still.
We believe that life should be affordable for all of them, and that is why this has not gone far enough.
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- Oct/6/22 11:21:33 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we on this side reject all misogyny and all acts of extremism, and we will always stand up to that over here.
I will give the House an example of why the subject of food affordability is so important, because the people who are the least advantaged in our society end up paying the most. Those with the least means, with the least resources, end up spending a larger share of their income on food. The very wealthy can spend a smaller share of income on food. That is why those people are not as affected by inflation.
Two years ago, I warned that we would have an inflation crisis if the government continued with its inflationary taxes and deficits, and that is exactly where we are today.
We, as Conservatives, will reverse the policies that got us here, to make the dollar go further for everybody.
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- Oct/6/22 11:23:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, neither the Bloc Québécois, nor the Liberals, nor the NDP have a plan to deal with climate change. They have a plan to increase taxes. Since the implementation of the carbon tax, the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets have never been met. It simply has not worked.
The hon. member says there will be exceptions, but when? We introduced bills to exempt farmers years ago, but that never happened. We cannot trust the current government or the costly coalition to make it happen.
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- Oct/6/22 2:20:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would first like to wish the Prime Minister and his family a happy Thanksgiving. However, it will not be too happy for many families, because the cost of turkey is up 16%. The cost of other food items has gone up over 20%, so one-fifth of Canadians will have to cut back on what they put on the table this Thanksgiving weekend.
How much will the price of Thanksgiving dinner go up once the Prime Minister triples the carbon tax?
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- Oct/6/22 2:21:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in English, I would also like to wish the Prime Minister and his family a happy Thanksgiving. However, it will not be too happy for a lot of people whose costs have gone out of control. In fact, the cost of turkey is up 16%, according to one food processor. The cost of other items are up over 20%, and one fifth of Canadians will have to reduce what they put on the plate this Thanksgiving weekend.
How much will the Prime Minister's tripling of the tax on our farmers, truckers and consumers increase the cost of Thanksgiving dinner for the future?
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- Oct/6/22 2:22:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, they will not be smiling if their parents cannot afford a bit of pumpkin pie for them at Thanksgiving dinner. Look at the cost increases that have happened: a 16% increase for the cost of turkey; a 22% increase for potatoes; bread is up 13%; butter, 13%; cranberries, 12%; bacon, 10%. That all adds up to an unaffordable Thanksgiving dinner, and the Prime Minister wants to make it worse still by tripling his tax on our farmers, our truckers and ultimately our consumers.
How much will that add to the cost of Thanksgiving?
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- Oct/6/22 2:24:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I condemn this organization, and I corrected the problem as soon as it became known to me. I condemn all forms of misogyny, including when the Prime Minister fired the very first female indigenous Attorney General. I condemn when he mistreated minority young women in his own caucus who had to leave politics. I condemn him for when he dressed up in racist costumes so many times he forgot them all.
We condemn it always.
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- Oct/6/22 2:25:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I took responsibility and corrected it as soon as it became known to me, but the Prime Minister does not take responsibility for the extremism that he has funded. He funded a vicious anti-Semite to spread hatred online with taxpayers' dollars. He repeatedly, in fact so many times he cannot even keep track, dressed up in racist costumes, for which he has never come fully to account. He drove many women in his own caucus out of the party and out of Parliament altogether with his mistreatment of them. We condemn all of that behaviour.
We condemn misogyny always and everywhere, and we ask the Prime Minister to finally do the same.
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