44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 16, 2022 02:00PM
- Nov/16/22 2:54:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this winter is likely to be as cold, punishing and long as the last winter. This is very bad news for Canadian families, because we have heard that gas home heating costs are expected to increase by 100%.
Six out of 10 Canadian families heat their homes with natural gas. That means there will be hundreds if not thousands of dollars more spent on home heating bills this winter by Canadian families. It is only going to be made worse by the Liberals, who are going to triple the carbon tax.
Why are they so insistent on punishing Canadians for heating their homes?
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- Nov/16/22 2:56:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have spent over $100 billion on climate change, and their carbon tax has increased the cost of food, home heating and gas. Things are getting worse than ever before. Inflation is at a 40-year high.
Now we are finding out that Canada, with all this spending and all these taxes, is ranked 58 out of 63 countries in the world on the climate change performance index by COP27. We are at the bottom of the barrel on climate change. The Liberals do not have a climate change plan. They have a tax plan.
When will they axe the carbon tax so that Canadian families can afford to live?
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Mr. Speaker, it is wonderful to see my hon. colleague from Manitoba in the chamber doing very well. I appreciated very much his speech. I especially appreciate the very respectful tone he had toward farmers. To be honest, I do not often feel that we are getting the respect that farmers deserve from the government, so I did greatly appreciate the member's remarks.
My family have been farmers for over four generations. What I am hearing from the farmers I know and who I grew up with is that the carbon tax is deeply impacting them. Our food prices are high. One of the reasons is that the gas we need to produce that food is going up in price, and part of the reason it is going up is because of the carbon tax. I just wonder how the member squares his respect for farmers with his government imposing a very punitive carbon tax, which is increasing the cost of food production.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very honoured to put words on the record regarding the Liberal government's fall economic statement. It is arriving at a time that is very critical in Canadian history. We are faced with inflation which is at a 40-year high. Food costs and inflation have not been this high since before I was born. My generation has never seen this type of economy, where people cannot afford food, cannot afford homes and inflation is putting people into poverty.
When I listened to the speech of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, I was hoping that I would hear some solutions, but I did not hear any real, concrete solutions to address the very difficult circumstances that many of my constituents are facing. For example, last year was a terribly cold, long, brutal and punishing winter and it is predicted that this winter will be much the same. That is very bad news for Canadians because we have heard that energy prices, particularly for gas-heated homes, will increase by 100%, at a minimum, on gas bills. Six out of 10 Canadian families heat their homes with gas. Millions of families and seniors will be paying hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars more on their gas bills just to stay warm this winter, just to heat their homes.
I am from Winnipeg and home heating is not an option. It is not an option to just throw on an extra sweater. People die if they cannot afford heat. It is very serious. Before the pandemic, there were significant numbers of seniors already living in poverty, particularly widowed women living alone, barely able to afford their rent and food. Now their gas bill is going to increase 100%. It is going to double. Some areas of the country are going to see a 300% increase.
What makes it worse is the government is raising the carbon tax. It is planning to increase the carbon tax this spring. It has increased it every spring for a number of years and it is planning to triple the carbon tax in the next number of years. We are going to see 100% increases, doubling home heating, and an increase in the carbon tax as well.
What does that mean? We are seeing the impacts of what the carbon tax, inflation and the cost of living crisis is doing. There were 1.5 million people in Canada who went to food banks last month. This is a record-breaking number. I visit the food banks in Winnipeg. I know the food banks in Toronto have been very vocal. There is news across the country in every city that food banks cannot keep up with the demand. Children are going hungry. Seniors are going hungry. They worked all their lives, contributed to our tax system and now they cannot afford food in Canada. Over half of Canadians are skimping on their grocery bill. They are having to buy less food because the situation is so dire. Twenty per cent of Canadians, one survey showed, are skipping meals. We are hearing this often with single mothers who are going hungry so their children can eat.
This is Canada. This is not the Canada that I grew up in. This is not something my generation has ever experienced before. I remember hearing about times like this from my grandparents. They recounted their experience in rural Canada during the Great Depression of being incredibly poor, having no options or government services, but we have so many government services. We are paying higher taxes than ever before, and yet here we are.
There was a headline recently in The Canadian Press which said something to the effect that children are going hungry in Canada. That was a headline in Canadian news, that children are going hungry in Canada. This is not the Canada that I know. I do not think it is the Canada the Speaker recognizes either.
The government has gone on and on saying that the carbon tax is going to help stop hurricanes, forest fires, heat domes and all these things. I am concerned about climate change, too. I am the generation that learned about climate change in school.
We are in a situation where the government is raising the tax on our major source of energy. Again, six out of 10 homes heat with gas. Canada could be an energy superpower. We have some of the largest gas reserves in the world. We have gas and we produce much of the world's food, and yet prices for food and gas to heat our homes are so high that people are going into poverty. It does not make sense.
What kind of federal government do we have that cannot take leadership and see our natural resources for what they are? We are very blessed in this country. People should not be going hungry or cold when we are blessed with these resources.
The Liberals are arguing in favour of raising the carbon tax again. We know that the government has spent over $100 billion on climate change. It is planning on tripling the carbon tax, which increases the price of gas to fill one's car, gas to heat one's home and to create, deliver and store food. For all of the things that we need to survive in this country, the carbon tax raises the price.
The government spent $100 billion on climate change. It is increasing the carbon tax on Canadians. How much of an emissions reduction have we seen in seven years? The Liberals have had seven years for their plan to show emissions reductions and to give people like me who care about emissions reductions hope, yet there have been no emissions reductions. There has been no positive impact on reducing emissions in Canada despite spending $100 billion and tripling the carbon tax. There has been no impact on reducing emissions. Something is very wrong here. Clearly, it is not working. The Liberals do not have a climate plan. They have a tax plan and it is taxing people into poverty.
I was in the grocery store the other day and I encountered some very friendly constituents who I represent. They are from a farming family. They asked me about the carbon tax and the impacts. They did not really understand. I am from a farming family. I do not think people realize that to grow our crops, we use huge machinery, massive combines, swathers, tillers, and all types of things. We need fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides. This is all to feed now eight billion people on earth. These massive machines need a lot of fuel, fossil fuels, just to grow the crops. Then we have to ship them and process them. We turn them into food that we can eat. We ship them to the grocery store and then store them in grocery stores that are powered by gas heating, more often than not.
Then people pick up their groceries. People wonder why food prices are high. Yes, there are supply chain issues. I think everybody acknowledges that. If the price of fuel to create that food is increased, what do people think is going to happen to the price of food? It is going to go up.
We keep asking the government. We had two demands specifically for this fall economic statement. They were very simple things. One was no new taxes. We asked that there be no tax increases. We know there is a payroll tax increase coming up on January 1. Of course, the carbon tax is going to be increased yet again in April. We said no new taxes.
There are no commitments in the fall economic statement not to raise taxes on Canadians. Those are coming during the worst inflation in 40 years. Food prices have skyrocketed and 1.5 million people are using food banks. The government is going to raise taxes on Canadians, the tax on energy and the tax on our paycheques. When people cannot afford food, the government is going to raise taxes. We cannot support it because the government will not do a simple thing and cut taxes or at least commit to not increasing them.
We asked the Liberal government not to increase spending. The Liberal government has spent over half a trillion dollars of deficits since it has been in office. That is more than any prime minister before this government combined. All the debt from all the prime ministers and leaders of this country combined is how much it has spent in seven years. Almost 150 years of deficits in seven years is how much new money has been pumped into the economy. Of course that has an impact on driving up inflation. More money in the economy chasing fewer goods means higher prices. This is the same as it has been for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
The Globe and Mail had a great opinion piece about this. The Globe and Mail is far from a Conservative publication. We are now seeing publications talking about how the Liberal government's spending has led to an increase in inflation. All of its spending is causing Canadians to go into poverty.
We have asked the government to stop new spending. For every dollar it is going to spend, it needs to find a dollar of savings. It is pretty simple stuff in a crisis situation, and yet that also was not met in the fall economic statement. Again, 1.5 million people are using food banks and the government cannot commit to stopping the increase of taxes, let alone cut them. That is what we would do if we were in power. We would also be looking to balance the books so that we are not pushing inflation up and up and up, yet those simple things cannot be done.
There is $20 billion of new spending in this fall economic statement, so we cannot in good conscience support it. We will ask again that the government commit to axing the carbon tax altogether. That would be really great. Then we could give an immediate break on gas at the pumps. We could give an immediate break on gas for home heating and an immediate break for food production and storage. That would bring immediate relief to moms, dads and seniors who are struggling today. It is what we are going on every single day. It is what we are hearing from our constituents. The cost of living is the number one concern.
Unfortunately it is going to be a while, but there is hope on the horizon. A Conservative government under our new leader would certainly bring an end to these tax increases, balance the books and reduce inflation.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments and his reaffirming that the tax increases are going to get worse. Home heating bills are going to get more expensive. We know that the carbon tax has been in place for a number of years now, and it is increasing the cost of home heating.
I appreciate that he has confirmed for Canadians that it will, in fact, be going up and they can expect higher home heating costs under the Liberal government. Perhaps the Liberals will not be in power by the time they are planning to triple it, so hopefully we can be the ones in power to cancel the carbon tax and bring Canadians relief.
It is important to underline that we needed much of the 40% of new government spending during the COVID pandemic. Many Canadians, including me, agree. However, $4 out of $10 the Liberals spent had nothing to do with the pandemic, and now Canadians are the ones to pay the price because it caused inflation in this country. They have to account for that.
Frankly, they should probably apologize to Canadians who are going to the food banks because of the Liberals' inflationary deficit spending.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague very sincerely for her question, but if my memory serves, it was Conservatives who brought forward a motion to cut the GST on home heating. The NDP voted against it. Unfortunately, her question does not stand.
We called for a GST break so that Canadians could more adequately afford to heat their homes. We think that the carbon tax should be axed, especially given we are at 40-year-high inflation.
She is making the argument for the carbon tax, but what about the people who are being priced out of affording food? What do we say to them? Should we not be pausing all these tax increases? Does the NDP not support giving people tax breaks so they can afford to feed their kids and so seniors do not have to eat bananas and bologna because they cannot afford other food? I am hearing that from store clerks.
I will leave members with this: A store clerk approached me recently, and she said she is seeing more seniors than ever who are buying cat food, as cat food is pretty cheap, but they do not have cats. They are buying cat food because they cannot afford real food for themselves. That is how bad inflation is. That is how bad the taxes are that the government is putting on the energy to create our food. That is the real impact; people are eating cat food. We are asking them to axe the tax to give Canadians relief.
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