44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 6, 2022 10:00AM
- Oct/6/22 10:17:59 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as my hon. colleague mentioned, yesterday the agriculture committee, with amendments from the Liberals, the Conservatives and the Bloc, passed his motion. I certainly think that reflects the working spirit of our committee.
I do not disagree with the proposition of what the member is putting forward, but when I look at the text of the motion it seems to almost have the conclusion before the investigation has even happened. When he talks about high corporate profits and high food prices, I guess my question for the hon. member is this. Is he asserting that there is absolute price gouging happening in this country, or does he think there are plausible reasons as to why corporate profits and food prices are higher? For example, because many Canadians are buying groceries as opposed to going to restaurants, that could have driven profits higher at the same time as we are facing inflationary pressures.
Does he think there is legitimate price gouging happening in this country, or are there plausible reasons as to why those two things could exist at the same time?
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- 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 11:21:33 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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Madam Speaker, it a difficult task to follow the leader of the official opposition, but I will do my best to carry on with our message about the NDP opposition day motion, which I also agree does not go far enough. It does not put a lot of the blame on the inflationary crisis we face where most of it belongs, which is on government spending.
We cannot say that CEOs, corporate Canada or global companies are driving inflation when we have a federal government that has put in half a trillion dollars in spending, which is having a significant impact on the prices that Canadians are facing all across the board.
I find it interesting that we see a bit of schizophrenia with our NDP colleagues, where with every opportunity they have to support increased spending and the tripling of the carbon tax, they vote with the government, yet their motion today attempts to try to make life more affordable for Canadians.
In question period yesterday, the leader of the NDP had concerns about rising gas prices, especially in his province of B.C. where fuel has hit $2.40 a litre. That is exactly what Liberal and NDP policy wants to achieve. It wants us to have higher fuel prices. It wants to force us to drive our cars less. I am sure that works in many of my colleagues' urban communities. Some days they can park their cars and take public transit or ride their bikes. My riding is almost 30,000 square kilometres.
Public transit does not exist in my riding. My constituents must drive their car. They must drive long distances to work. They must heat their homes and their barns in -40°C weather in January. These are the facts of life. These are the necessities of life. These are not extravagant choices; they have to do that. In response to that, our Liberal colleagues, supported by the NDP, want to triple the carbon tax.
I am going to focus a little on the agricultural sector and the impact that is having on rural economies and rural Canadians. I would argue that rural Canadians, especially our farmers, producers and ranchers, pay the carbon tax over and over again.
It was interesting to hear my Liberal colleague say that while farmers were price-takers, the carbon tax did not have an impact on the price of food. It is true that they are price-takers. However, when we triple the carbon tax, we triple the price of fuel. We saw the price of fertilizer go up 100% last year. That does not include the 35% tariff on fertilizer from Russia and Belarus. That impacts hauling their grain, hauling their cattle and transportation to the terminal. Every single time they are paying that carbon tax over and over again.
The company or rail company hauling their grain passes that carbon tax on to the consumer. Every time those prices go up on those transportation or commodity services, it impacts the price of food. That is why we have seen the cost of groceries go up more than 10%, the highest rate of inflation in more than 40 years.
Therefore, I understand my NDP colleagues when they say that the CEOs in Canada should pay their fair share. I agree with that. Every Canadian should pay their fair share. The Liberal government has been in power for seven years. If there are loopholes, it should be holding taxpayers accountable for paying their fair share. Obviously, it has not done that. However, to shift the blame from where it lies to other parts of the economy is disingenuous.
An interesting statistic came up yesterday at the agriculture committee, and I want to highlight it. We heard it from my Bloc colleague, who I have a lot of respect for as well. Climate change is real, but to put the price of fighting climate change on the backs of Canadian farmers is not fair. Let us be real here, as my colleague was saying. Let us have an honest conversation about this. GHG intensity in agriculture is about 28% globally. What it is in Canada? It is 8%. We are tenfold better than any other country in the world when it comes to GHG emissions and intensity in the agriculture sector in Canada.
With respect to the fertilizer issue, the Liberal government wants to see a 30% reduction in fertilizer use. As I said, grocery prices have gone up 10%. If the Liberals follow through with this policy, all I can say to Canadian consumers is “you ain't seen nothing yet”. When farmers have to see their yields go down between 30% and 50%, depending on what the commodity is, that means significantly lower yields and significantly higher grocery prices. That has nothing to do with the CEO of Loblaws. That has exactly to do with government policy put forward by the Liberals.
Again, what makes that so frustrating is they are saying to Canadian farmers that they are not part of the solution; they are the problem. Canadian farmers are 50% to 70% more efficient in their fertilizer use than any other country on planet earth. Instead of congratulating them for that and going around the world saying that we are the gold standard and here is where everybody else in the world should go, we are apologizing and dragging our farmers down to where everybody else is. That is the wrong philosophy and certainly the wrong policy.
All that is doing is making our farmers worse off. It is also more harmful to the environment, and food prices will go up. It is a triple whammy. Instead of doing the right thing and being a champion and advocate for Canadian farmers, we are going in the exact opposite direction.
There are other policies the Liberals have put forward that have made the cost of groceries and the cost of food go up, and I really want to focus on this part. I am going to backtrack a little to the carbon tax again. My colleague from the Bloc brought that up. In the agriculture committee, we are talking about Bill C-234, a private member's bill brought forward by the Conservatives to exempt natural gas and propane from the carbon tax on farms. This is a critical piece of legislation that would ensure our farmers are able to remain competitive on the global stage. However, the Liberals are arguing that we do not need Bill C-234 because farmers get a rebate through Bill C-8.
We now know from Finance Canada officials that the average farmer will get about $800 back a year through that rebate. We also know that farmers pay close to $50,000 a year on average in carbon tax. I asked a representative from Finance Canada how they could argue that the carbon tax is revenue-neutral when they were admitting that the average farmer is getting about $800 to $860 back. His answer was that if we made it revenue-neutral, urban Canadians would have to subsidize that. Okay. He was telling me that rural Canadians were subsidizing the carbon tax and wealth redistribution for urban Canadians. That is what he was telling me.
That is not what the Liberal policy on the carbon tax was. They said it was going to be revenue-neutral and that eight out of 10 families would get more back than they paid. That is baloney. Rural Canadians are suffering and certainly paying significantly more in carbon tax than other Canadians. That is not what the Liberals are selling. Again, it is Liberal policy that is driving inflation and driving up the price of food.
It is going to get worse. Although we had a bit of a win this spring when we got the Liberals to back down on front-of-pack labelling on ground beef and pork, they are still going ahead with front-of-pack labelling on most other products. The cost of that is going to be $1.8 billion to the industry. Who do we think pays for that? I can guarantee that Galen Weston at Loblaws is not covering that cost. I can guarantee that French's ketchup is not covering that cost. They are passing that right on to the consumer.
Again, a Liberal policy that no one asked for and serves very little purpose is going to be passing on $2 billion in costs to the Canadian consumer for no reason. That is not to mention that the United States has already identified this policy as a trade irritant. Therefore, not only are we upsetting Canadian consumers, but we are also upsetting our number one trading partner, which is looking for every excuse possible to fight back against Canadian trade.
In conclusion, I appreciate what my NDP colleague is trying to achieve with this motion, and there are many portions of it that we agree with. Certainly CEOs should pay their fair share and affordable food should be available for every Canadian, but the facts are the facts. Inflation is being driven by ideological, activist policy by the Liberal government. That should be the focus of the House.
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- Oct/6/22 1:16:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when we look at the text of the motion, I think most members in the House would agree that the conversation around food inflation and pricing is an important one, but it seems to suggest that there is already a predetermined outcome, that grocers and CEOs are absolutely price gouging.
When the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford raised his point, I asked him about whether there could be a correlation between the fact that many Canadians would have been buying groceries for home over the last year as opposed to eating at restaurants and that, because of the inflationary pressures we are seeing, prices could have been up, but grocery profits also could have been up because of the changed dynamic of how we were purchasing food and feeding ourselves over the last couple of years.
Does the member think there is a plausible rationale for why those two things are happening or is it just her assertion that grocers are absolutely price-fixing the system?
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- Oct/6/22 2:56:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Liberals' inflationary taxes, Canadians are so poor now, they are less than $200 away from being unable to pay their monthly bills. This Liberal government is turning a blind eye to the cost of living, but Canadians have tightened their belts as far as they could.
Can the Prime Minister tell us whether he will scrap the triple tax on gas, food and home heating?
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- Oct/6/22 3:48:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as always it is a great honour to rise and speak on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay, particularly at this time of incredible uncertainty. We noticed and are very pleased to see the Russian army suffering defeats in Ukraine, but we are in a time of major global uncertainty. We are in a time of crisis in prices and crisis in supply chains. Workers are being told, with respect to their lack of ability to get higher wages, that if they somehow got a more level playing field, it would exacerbate the inflation crisis.
What New Democrats are calling for today is to focus in on where these inflationary problems are being driven. They are being driven by gouging by some very major and powerful corporate interests. On the oil sector, around the world there are questions being raised about the massive profits coming out of the pockets of ordinary consumers, who cannot even afford to heat their houses.
The other really disturbing issue we are seeing is the crisis in the affordability of food, and that is directly tied to the price gouging that has been under way throughout this crisis. What we are asking for is very straightforward. We are asking the Competition Bureau to launch an investigation into grocery chain practices, to increase the penalties for price fixing and to strengthen competition laws to prohibit these companies from abusing their dominant positions in the market, which exploit both consumers and agricultural producers.
We are also calling for the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food to look into this, because we want to make sure we are dealing with issues of fairness, as people are being gouged and cannot afford to pay their bills.
It is very interesting and indicative that we are debating this today, when the New Democratic motion on doubling the GST tax credit has received support from this House, because we came into this Parliament saying we were going to fight for people who are being left behind in this time of uncertainty.
We brought forward three major initiatives for the fall. First, the doubling of the GST tax credit will get money right back into the hands of people, families and seniors so they can buy their groceries. Second, for low-income renters, the $500 supplement is essential support at this time of gouging and particularly high housing prices. Third, of course, is the initiative the Liberals have now moved to agree with us on, which is a national dental care plan. If a person cannot afford to get their kids' teeth fixed, all other issues pale in comparison. A mother or a father who cannot afford to get their child's teeth fixed is in a situation that should not be allowed to happen.
My friends in the Conservative Party have been very much against these initiatives. I appreciate the flip-flop on the tax credit, but the word they have been using is that actual steps to help people in this crisis would somehow be “vaporized” by inflation, as though inflation is some kind of magic thing. I am interested in the term “vaporizing”, because the only thing I noticed that vaporized over the summer was the price of cryptocurrency after the leader of the Conservative Party told us that he gets his financial advice from a conspiracy blogger on YouTube.
I know they got a lot of their medical advice from anti-vax conspiracy bloggers on YouTube, but the idea that the leader of the Conservative Party was promoting cryptocurrency, which dropped 70% in value after he began promoting it, is something we should think about for a minute. I know a lot of working-class people in northern Ontario who do not have savings, who are insecure and who thought maybe crypto would be a way of allowing them to get some kind of savings. They listened to the Conservative leader. Seventy per cent of that value vaporized.
I will tell members what is not going to vaporize, which is getting that $500 cheque if someone is a low-income renter, or getting the $460 to $600 GST rebate so people can pay their rent. What is not going to vaporize is the hopes of children to get dental care. That is what New Democrats came to Parliament to do. It was to get results for people.
What we need to do is strip off a lot of the mythologies and misrepresentations on what is causing inflation. Now, I mentioned the Russian war at the beginning, and we know that has destabilized the situation globally, but when we drill down on the numbers in Canada, it becomes very clear that certain powerful interests are using the fears of inflation to drive up their profits and their corporate lines.
The CEO of Sobeys was paid $8.6 million in compensation this year. What does this guy do to deserve this? Groceries rose nearly 11% in that time. It is supposed to be inflationary growth that caused the 11% rise, but the profits we saw from Sobeys, Loblaws and Metro are much higher than the rate of inflation. The rates of wage earnings are much lower than the rate of inflation, so workers who got an increase this year did not contribute to inflation; it is the gouging that is going on. The CEO compensation at Loblaws was $5 million; at Metro it was $5 million, and at Sobeys it was $8.6 million.
I want to focus in a bit on the Weston family, on Galen Weston, living in his gated community. He was found guilty of price-fixing with respect to bread, for crying out loud. I want to thank Irene Breckon, a good northern Ontario woman from the mining town of Elliot Lake, who led the class action lawsuit. Does anyone think that Galen Weston is ever going to be punished for ripping off families with respect to bread? That is not what happens to the super rich. They get free gifts, for example, $12 million to fix Galen Weston's fridges.
My mom, and I am thinking of Loretta Lynn today, is a coal miner's daughter. I had to explain this to her. She called me to ask what was going on with the Liberal government fixing Galen Weston's fridges, and whether it would fix her fridge. I told her that I knew it was really not right and that we were trying to deal with it. Then she came home and told me about the grocery prices she is having to pay and asked about Galen Weston and all the money he is making. I told her not to worry, that we are going to make this right.
That is why we are in the House today. Across party lines, we need to start saying to these CEOs that they cannot use inflationary fears anymore to gouge working-class families that have no choice but to go to the grocery store and pay for the food they need for their children.
In our motion today we are not talking about the oil price gouging that is going on, but that has been one of the other massive drivers of inflation. At the beginning of October, when the price of a barrel of oil was $80, prices were still 13% higher than they were the last time the price of a barrel was that high. I am sure other people in the country know this too, but anyone in northern Ontario knows that the second a hurricane hits the southern Gulf coast the price of gas at our local pumps jumps up 30¢ overnight, but when everything is going fine that price does not come down. There is consistent gouging.
Members do not have to believe me. I know people think I am the wild New Democrat from northern Ontario, but I would say that my good friend the CEO of Shell agrees with me, because he is saying that the situation around the world is so unstable due to the gouging of the oil companies that this crisis can no longer be left to the markets. He says it is time we started to tax that windfall back.
We are not saying it is wrong to make profit. Profit is good. It is what drives industry. However, companies are gouging people over their fears of inflation and using the Russian war to pad their pockets. How are they padding them? Let us talk about the $52 billion in the second quarter of this year, which is an increase of 235%. That is the kind of gouging that is going on.
The United Nations, California, the EU and even President Biden are talking about the windfall tax that is necessary to pull some of that gouging back and restore it to ordinary Canadians. That is our job in the House of Commons, to stand up for the people who do not have a voice in the back rooms of power, who do not have the lobbyists and who do not have the Cayman Islands to hide their tax accounts. They have to go and feed their kids. They deserve dental care. They deserve an investigation into the gouging that is going on in the grocery stores right now.
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- Oct/6/22 5:25:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to be able to rise following the great comments from my colleague for Prince Albert who was able to offer an education to some members on the government benches and their coalition partners on how the policies of this government are hurting Canadians and hurting farmers.
The member raised a very interesting question about affordability and the impact of this carbon tax as it affects food prices in Canada and as it affects the affordability crisis that Canadians are facing. The cost of this Liberal government is driving up the cost of living for all Canadians and at a time of year when demands on food banks are particularly high in a regular year. We are seeing, real time, the effects that the inflationary crisis, the made-in-Canada Liberal inflationary crisis, has on our food banks, which is that they do not have enough food to support the people who are there looking for their help. I will take a quick second to say to anyone who is watching and is able, who maybe has put off a donation to their local food bank, that now is the time to dig deep, because our neighbours, people in our communities, are hurting.
This affordability crisis is also being driven by the carbon tax, which is a tax on everything. We have heard, in recent days, what the effects are of that increase that is projected to come, the tripling of that carbon tax. It is going to raise the price on people's shelter costs. It is going to raise the prices on people's ability to clothe themselves. It is going to raise the prices on people's ability to feed themselves.
We know that when the input costs go up that it is going to raise the prices all the way from farm to table. I know that some members might be surprised to learn that food does not originate in the stockroom at the grocery store. It comes from Canadian farms.
We need to get serious about tackling this inflationary crisis, get serious about bringing down the food costs that Canadians are dealing with. The best way and the immediate way we can do that is for this government to commit to Canadians that it is not going to triple the taxes on Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, it is a real pleasure to rise today in debate.
I wanted to pick up on an important point that the member for Bay of Quinte was talking about. Although he said it had not been said enough times in here today, I did want to emphasize the real burden the government's plan to triple the tax on Canadians is putting on them.
We are going to keep listening to Canadians because they are giving us these heartbreaking stories, as we come up on this Thanksgiving weekend, about the rising food prices that they are experiencing, the tax burden and the cost of living crisis. Frankly, it is a made-in-Canada Liberal inflationary crisis that has driven up the cost of everything and has driven Canadians to food banks in record numbers.
I want to take a quick opportunity, with my remaining time, to just remind any Canadian who is able to make a donation to their local food bank of goods or cash, which our food banks are able to make go a little further, to make that donation because they are really struggling to help Canadians out as we head into this Thanksgiving weekend.
Canada's Conservatives are going to continue fighting for Canadians on the matter of affordability. We know that rising taxes are a concern. That is what we are here to fight.
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