44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 3, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I am going to talk today about Bill C-56, which is the Liberal-NDP government's attempt at dealing with the affordability issue.
To talk about the legislation itself, we first need to look at where we are in this country, and it is not a very pretty picture. If we look at where we are right now, mortgage payments over the last eight years have virtually doubled in this country from coast to coast to coast. We have a similar issue now with rent all across the country. If we look at the average rents being paid now, that amount has also virtually doubled. This is the track record of the Liberal government, which now suddenly seems to be concerned about affordability for Canadians.
However, the bad news for Canadians does not stop there. It used to take 25 years to pay off one's mortgage. Now it takes the average Canadian 25 years to save for their mortgage. Think about what the difference between those is. Some people might say that is not their problem and that this is a young person's problem when they are trying to get into the market. It is bad enough if it is a young person's problem, but it is also affecting average Canadians right here and right now.
I was recently informed about a person whose mortgage has come up for renewal. Their mortgage was coming from that nice, low fixed interest rate. People will remember those low interest rates the Prime Minister said were going to be there for a very long time, the interest rates the Governor of the Bank of Canada said were going to stay low for a very long time. Based on that, many people took mortgages with a very low interest rate because it allowed them to have a mortgage payment they could afford. However, as mortgage rates have continued to go up, as the Bank of Canada has continued to raise interest rates in order to fight inflation, average Canadians now have to pay the bill as a result of this.
In this particular circumstance, this family has said that it can hold on for about another six months with this increased mortgage payment. They can dig into savings and they can further borrow for about six months, and then they are not going to be able to make the mortgage payments on their home. That is the consequence of eight years of the Liberal government.
Inflation is out of control. I hear it all the time in my riding of Dufferin—Caledon. People come up to me in the grocery store and say to me that they now have to only go to the grocery store to shop bargains. They do not actually have a grocery list, because they can buy only what is on sale. This is all they can afford. After eight years of the Liberal government, this is what people are saying to me in the grocery store. It is a shocking turnaround for Canadians. They are having trouble paying their mortgages. They are having trouble buying groceries. They are having trouble heating their homes as a result of the carbon tax. All of these things are making life more expensive for Canadians.
There is a simple solution. There are actually two very simple solutions the government could implement right away. Number one is that it could cut the carbon tax. We know that would have an immediate impact, because, as has been said by Conservatives in the House of Commons over and over again, the farmers are taxed on farm produce. As they produce it, they are taxed with the carbon tax. Whether that is for drying the grain, driving the combines or whatever, they are paying a carbon tax. When that crop is harvested, the driver of the truck that comes to pick it up is going to pay the carbon tax. When it goes to be processed, there is a carbon tax. When a truck picks it up to take it to the grocery store, there is a carbon tax. At the grocery store, the carbon tax is heating the grocery store; therefore, the store owner is paying a carbon tax as well.
At the end of the day, Canadians cannot afford to pay for food, and they end up saying that they do not even have a grocery list and just go to the grocery store and buy whatever is on sale. If we would have said this to Canadians eight years ago, they would have said that this was not possible. In a country like Canada, food is abundant. We feed the world because we have the best farmers in the world, who are great stewards of the land. If we had said eight years ago that Canadians would only be able to go to the grocery store and shop bargains, that would have been an inconceivable thought, but here we are.
After eight years of the Liberal government, that is the sad situation that Canadians find themselves in. It is very difficult to pay the mortgage, very difficult to buy groceries, very difficult to pay rent and very difficult to buy a house. That is the Liberals' record. That is the context that we look at when they bring in this bill.
This is not a new problem. Conservatives have been talking about this problem for the last number of years. In fact, the Conservative leader, many years ago, said that the inflationary spending caused by the government was going to drive up inflation, which would then drive up interest rates. He is looking more and more like Nostradamus with that prediction. As for me, 18 months ago, I rose to speak about the impact of the carbon tax on food production. I said that it was going to cause a massive increase in the cost of food, and here we are. The Liberal government cannot therefore claim that somehow this is a new problem, that it was unaware of the problem. It was well aware. It was well forewarned and did absolutely nothing about it.
When we look at this particular bill, what is amazing to me is that Liberal members will get up in this House during debate and during question period and talk about how, as a result of tabling this legislation, one developer has said it is now going to build 5,000 rental units. They puff out their chests and say to look at them, look at the amazing things they have accomplished. Well, let us put that into context.
According to the CMHC, we will need to build three million more homes between now and 2030 than are planned or scheduled to be built. The plan is that we will build two million homes. We will have to build three million more than that in order to get back some affordability.
As I have said a few times in this chamber, I went to law school because I was not good at math. However, what I did before I prepared for this speech is decided to get out my calculator and look at this. I saw that 5,000 units out of the three million we need is 0.0016%. If I had a child come home with a bad grade, and the teacher not only put an F on there but said that my son got 0.0016% on the test, I would not be a proud father. However, somehow these members walk around like they have discovered fire with this plan to build such a small number of houses.
It is even worse. To even come up with some of their plan, they had to take from the Conservative leader's plan. With grocery affordability, again, the best thing they could do is cut the carbon tax, which they repeatedly vote against. We know that this would bring the most relief. They also decided they are going to bring in some Competition Act changes, which they also stole from a Conservative member of Parliament's private member's bill. When a government is completely out of ideas, affordability has gone off the scale and Canadians are deeply hurting, what does the government, the brain trust and all of the political advisers they have come up with? Well, they just take what the Conservatives said they were going to do.
They have only taken some of it. What we have here is a plan that is not going to do anything to address the affordability crisis that is going on across the country, and there is a real consequence. I spoke about this in question period. For example, there is Paula in B.C., 71, who is retired. She is now saying that she might have to move out of her house because the landlord is going to sell it. She is also facing a 75% increase in rent as a result of that. That is their record. They have not provided solutions quickly or ones that are going to address the concerns of Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, I am very fascinated when I hear Conservatives talk about affordability. I think of Doug Ford, Mr. X, the $8-billion scheme and the trip they took down to Vegas. They do not remember it, but they were all at the spa at the same time.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague about a meeting that was held on June 25, when four Conservatives were flown over to London, apparently paid for by my cousin Dan McTeague, which I find kind of surprising. The total cost of the meal was $4,690 Canadian. They drank one bottle of wine for $818, a second bottle for $265 and a third bottle for $719, and they topped it off with a bottle of champagne for $1,791.
I do not know a single Canadian who has ever drank that wealthily, yet the Conservatives were guzzling it back. Who paid for this trip and why were they there?
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Madam Speaker, when members cannot debate the ideas that are put forward, members go to where that member went.
I know the member is new, but there is a difference between the provincial government, which he referenced, and the federal government and federal Parliament, which we are actually sitting in right now. The member might want to take some time to read up on the functions of a member of Parliament.
However, I am glad he brought up sponsored travel, because the member took a trip to Germany, and his total expenses were $10,489.60. This was in 2022, and it does not stop there. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, he spent 4,300 dollars' worth of sponsored travel to Washington, D.C.
Let us get out the dictionary and look up “hypocrisy”.
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- Oct/3/23 4:40:08 p.m.
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I want to remind members that when they ask questions or give answers, they need to make sure they do not interrupt others.
Questions and comments, the hon. member for Red Deer—Lacombe.
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Madam Speaker, I listened intently to my colleague's speech. He talked about the Nostradamus prediction that would equate to what the leader of the Conservative Party said. I am wondering if he would like to reflect more on comments we have made.
As Conservatives, we have known all the time that living within our means is the responsible way to do government. The previous prime minister, Stephen Harper, said that the deficits this current administration would run would not be small but would in fact be out of control. I think the words were “He has no idea what he is talking about”, in reference to the current Prime Minister.
I wonder if my colleague could reflect on those comments and how true they are.
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Madam Speaker, it is amazing that all of this was predicted. The affordability crisis we find ourselves in, runaway inflation and high interest rates were all predicted by the Conservative leader.
It is actually a shocking amount of spending. The federal government, under this NDP-Liberal coalition, now spends $176 billion per year every year more than in 2015. I hear from constituents when they raise that issue, and I ask, “What in your life is better?” No one can answer that. All of this spending has really driven the affordability crisis and has not helped the vast majority of Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, does my colleague think any meaningful measures for social housing could be introduced?
The Bloc Québécois has repeatedly proposed investing 1% of the budget in social housing on an ongoing basis, so that crises like the one we are currently experiencing will be less frequent. Obviously, this measure is less popular because there is nothing spectacular about it. The government could do that instead of introducing half-measures like the one it has presented to us.
I would like to know if this is something my colleague finds interesting and if he would be willing to discuss it.
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Madam Speaker, I am in agreement that we have to do more to get more houses built, but I think our plan is better. There is a great number of federal buildings that are underutilized. We should convert those units. I think our plan says we are going to allow 15% to be converted into housing, which is better than coming up with some random number and having the government build it.
Let us remove the gatekeepers, unleash the private sector, turn those buildings over and get them built into all kinds of units, like affordable rental units and other units. That is the path forward.
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- Oct/3/23 4:43:07 p.m.
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Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, Democratic Institutions; the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, Electoral Reform; the hon. member for Spadina—Fort York, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.
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Madam Speaker, today I rise in this chamber to debate Bill C-56, which would make several important and timely amendments to the Competition Act. A stronger competition framework is good for all Canadians, ensuring that companies are playing fairly, preserving opportunities for new firms to enter the market and ensuring that consumers benefit from more and better choices in the marketplace.
The bill includes three significant changes to the Competition Act: one, the ability for the Competition Bureau to compel information during a market study; two, the abolition of the efficiencies defence from merger review; and finally, the enabling of the review of agreements between any two parties when the agreement is designed to limit competition. These three important amendments stem from the government's extensive consultations, which took place over the last several months. These measures and others like them have widespread support, particularly from Canadians and small businesses. They reflect the concerns raised and respond to the pleas of many stakeholders from a wide variety of backgrounds.
The Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development has released a report on what it heard during its consultations. I strongly recommend that all my colleagues review it to gain an understanding of the stakes involved and learn about some of the issues under consideration as the government takes the next steps.
With that in mind, I would like to share some of what stakeholders had to say in support of the measures that ended up in this bill.
Regarding market studies, the consultation drew a significant number of comments on the importance of knowing how our markets function. The majority of stakeholders felt that the Competition Bureau needed access to the best information and that this was the norm in most other countries. The Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, a think tank dedicated to Canadian competition policy, stated that the lack of formal bureau powers in this area cripples its ability to understand new and emerging markets. It makes the bureau less able to assess if its enforcement decisions have had the desired impact.
OpenMedia, a consumer organization dedicated to an open and free Internet, stressed the need for the bureau to have the power to proactively study new and emerging markets. In markets especially fraught with high levels of concentration, serious and persistent problems need to be detected in order to be tackled.
The importance of a competitive freight transport sector to bring goods to Canadians was driven home during the COVID-19 pandemic and the supply chain difficulties that it brought. A joint submission by the Freight Management Association of Canada and numerous producers and shippers who rely on our transportation infrastructure also came out in favour of a framework for market studies. They highlighted that the international nature of ocean shipping means national authorities need to be even more vigilant in monitoring the behaviour of the companies at their ports. Data collection systems are integral to assessing the impact on Canadian trade and business, and the bureau needs to be able to collect information outside of an enforcement context to properly detect problems.
The Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a national public policy think tank, probably familiar to many members of Parliament, explains how an expanded information-collection power should be supported by traditionalists and reformers alike and serves to fill other information gaps that hinder government.
There was also a wide call for appropriate safeguards attached to market studies. The Canadian Bar Association asked that information requests be subject to judicial authorization and open to challenge by the parties, while the Business Council of Canada insisted that if studies were to be introduced, there must be time limits on their duration and that the responsible minister should provide approval to launch such a study. These guardrails are all provided for in the proposed approach outlined in Bill C-56.
Now I would like to turn to another amendment to the Competition Act, which relates to the efficiencies defence. Long before the public consultation, the Competition Act's efficiencies exception has been a focus of commentary. This provision allows anti-competitive mergers to survive challenge if they generate corporate efficiencies that are said to outweigh competitive harm, even if consumers pay the price.
There was no shortage of submissions to the consultation on this particular topic. It is the area of concern that received the most engagement, with a strong majority supporting its abolition. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre, a national not-for-profit organization that promotes inclusive decision-making and protection of consumer interests, explained how the original policy intent of creating internationally competitive companies had not been met. It felt that the efficiencies defence has, in fact, served to protect domestic companies from competition, at consumers' expense. The Centre for International Governance Innovation has also come out against the efficiencies defence, which it sees as a mistaken attempt to bring more predictability to the law.
Abolishing the defence is the right thing to do in recognition of the increasing concentration of multiple industries across Canada, as well as the corresponding decrease in competition. These factors create a significant drag on the real efficiency of our marketplaces, and the productivity and international competitiveness of our economy.
Unifor, Canada's largest private sector union, explains how the efficiencies generated are often only passed on to the shareholders at the direct expense of laid-off workers. The cost savings of efficiencies come from a decrease in personnel, resulting in a less competitive industry that can more easily capture value for those at the top.
Moreover, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the National Farmers Union and L'Union des producteurs agricoles, all key players in Canada's food procurement and supply chain, have come out in favour of the abolition of the efficiencies defence as well. Their reasons include a skepticism of the ability for efficiencies to overcome anti-competitive effects and their significant contribution to the ease of unfavourable acquisitions in Canada.
Lastly, I wanted to talk about collaborations as another topic this bill addresses. The consultations also raised the question of whether the bureau should be able to review collaborations between non-competing entities when they harm competition. Currently, the law addresses only agreements or arrangements formed between real or potential competitors, and Bill C-56 would expand that in some circumstances. A majority of those who commented on the matter supported broadening the law.
The Consumers Council of Canada felt that the exclusion of certain agreements from reviewability renders the bureau unable to deal with real competition issues. They explain how commercial relationships established with good intentions by both sides can still lead to unanticipated and unintended consequences, and the bureau should not leave it up to businesses to decide—
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I would respectfully ask you to confirm whether we have the quorum required for the business of the House to proceed.
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- Oct/3/23 4:52:26 p.m.
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I will check for quorum.
And the count having been taken:
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I thank the hon. member for raising this matter. Right now we do have quorum in the House.
The hon. parliamentary secretary.
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Madam Speaker, the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers has stressed that restrictive covenants in lease or purchase agreements, a form of vertical restraint that is not currently reviewable as a competitor collaboration under the Competition Act, have a serious impact on the food supply for a significant number of Canadian communities. The International Center for Law & Economics also agreed that collaborations between any two actors have the possibility of harming competition, and that the Competition Act should not be limited arbitrarily in the sorts of agreements that it can review.
In conclusion, the consultation process revealed many significant areas of concern for our Competition Act, informed by each stakeholder's unique perspective and valuable insight into the Canadian economy. The proposals that the government has chosen to advance were chosen to carefully target the most critical issues impacting affordability for Canadians in the near term and were informed by the inputs of a variety of actors.
These three reforms represent much-needed updates to the Competition Act. They allow the Competition Bureau to better serve its mandate and will help make Canada a better place to live and do business. I hope all members will join me in supporting this bill's speedy passage.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my neighbour from Whitby for taking an interest in this very important legislation and debate today.
We were together in Oshawa on the weekend, and I know that he has a strong interest in my community. I received an email today from Christine, which says that she, her fiancé and their two children have been homeless for about five months with nowhere really to go. Her fiancé is on sick leave. She has called every shelter around, from Oshawa to Toronto, Kitchener and back, and from Ajax, Whitby, Bowmanville and Courtice, all the way to Cobourg. Everything is full. Even Cornerstone has a three-month waiting list. Children's Aid is giving them a hotel for a couple of days.
People are hurting, and things are very urgent. I was wondering if my colleague for Whitby could tell us in the House what the act before us would do to provide affordable housing for people in Durham region before the winter.
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Madam Speaker, it was good to see my hon. colleague out in Oshawa this weekend as well. We share an interest in fighting homelessness and solving the affordable housing challenges that Canadians find themselves in.
Our government, unlike previous Conservative governments, has made a historic investment, through the national housing strategy, of $82 billion, which has repaired units, built new units and lifted many people out of homelessness across Canada. That is work that is still under way. There is still money rolling out for those investments through the rapid housing initiative, and we have since added measures on.
Bill C-56 would add a new measure, and would be to lift GST for rental construction, which is itself anticipated to help create or unlock 200,000 to 300,000 more units of affordable housing for Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I was glad I could provide at least some sort of an audience.
I want to go back to the question that my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé asked another colleague earlier.
Instead of introducing measures that are little more than publicity stunts, that may have some short-term effect but that do nothing to provide a modicum of predictability to address future labour shortages, would it not be better to force the government to dedicate 1% of its budget to building affordable and social housing? That would be a long-term solution to prevent future crises. It would be the responsible thing to do.
What does my colleague think about that suggestion?
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member opposite for helping me find an audience for my speech.
I do not think that these are token measures, and adding 200,000 to 300,000 units of affordable housing or rental construction units is not a small feat. It is a significant amount, and we can couple that with the $82 billion in the national housing strategy and the housing accelerator fund dollars, which are speeding up the process for municipalities to help lead the way on building more affordable housing. I think that these things are, in total, going to help create a more comprehensive approach to solving the housing affordability issues that we have.
There is much more opportunity and additional measures to consider, and I hope to undertake those conversations and listen to the ideas of my colleagues across the way.
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Madam Speaker, the member spoke quite a bit about the Competition Act and some of the new amendments, which are welcomed, but I want to talk about what is already existing there in relation to grocery prices.
We know that Loblaws and Shoppers Drug Mart merged about 10 years ago, but there has not been a review of that merger, which is an opportunity that exists in the Competition Act. The Competition Bureau could certainly move forward immediately and review if that merger has been beneficial to Canadian consumers. Does the member support that initiative?
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Madam Speaker, I support the fact that the Competition Bureau's powers needed to be amended and strengthened so that it can undertake market studies and look at mergers that may not be in the best interest of Canadians or in the best interest of a competitive marketplace, which is specifically what Bill C-56 aims to do.
It is outlined in the work that we did when I was on the agriculture and agri-food committee. The Competition Bureau clearly cited in its recent report on grocery price inflation just how limited some of its powers were and how much that inhibited its ability to come to conclusions. I think these powers are a great addition.
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Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to speak to the Liberal government's Bill C- 56, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Competition Act.
This is yet another half-baked, half-measure bill from the Prime Minister to solve an affordability crisis that he, himself, and his government have created. After eight years of inflationary taxes and out-of-control spending, Canadians have now found that they cannot afford the Liberal government. They cannot afford housing. They cannot afford fuel, and they certainly cannot afford food.
What makes this bill that much more frustrating is that the Liberals are adding more bureaucracy to try to solve a problem that they created, when there is actually a very quick measure they could enact today that would reduce costs for Canadians significantly, and that would be by eliminating the inflationary carbon tax 1 and carbon tax 2. These two carbon taxes and the inflationary aspect of them are making life unaffordable for Canadians.
Today, we saw in a report by the Financial Post that their new initiative, the Canadian sustainability standards board, is actually going to exacerbate those costs on Canadians, especially when it comes to food costs. It is going to add additional bureaucracy to every industry and every commodity, asking them to identify the impact of carbon on every link in the supply chain. This is going to add so much red tape and bureaucracy, and and an onus on every industry, manufacturing every product and growing every commodity, that it is going to make life that much more unaffordable.
The interesting thing is that the Liberals are implementing or imposing these punishing carbon taxes on, for example, agriculture, which is one of the industries that we are a leader in. We are world class in sustainability, in our emissions and in our ability to grow food with the lowest emissions in the world.
The data in painfully clear on the impact the Liberals' carbon tax 1 and 2 is having on Canadian farm families. According to the Canada food price index, a 5,000-acre farm would be paying $150,000 in carbon taxes every single year. There is not a farmer I know that could absorb those types of costs and still remain economically viable.
That is the question the Liberals always seem to forget. They talk about sustainability. I think they get a quarter every time they say it. However, they never talk about economic viability. When these new regulations and taxes are imposed on industry, agriculture or energy, it is impacting their ability to remain economically viable.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer just published a new report confirming the correlation between inflation in Canada and the suffocating carbon tax on our farmers. Diesel will go up 70¢ a litre. In many provinces, gas has already exceeded two dollars a litre.
When I was in Vancouver a couple of weeks ago, in the GVA meeting with some farmers, it was $2.08 a litre for gas. It is unbelievable that the government is now expecting Canadians to absorb that and still be able to put food on the table and pay their mortgages. This year alone, the carbon tax collected from farmers, just from on-farm propane and natural gas, was $50 million.
I find it interesting that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change said in his speech on Thursday that he did not know why we were so excited, that the carbon tax does not impact farming. The statistics from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the Canada food price index and just about every commodity group in the country say otherwise.
This is why we have brought forward Bill C-234, which would exempt the carbon tax from natural gas and propane because they are still paying the carbon tax on those two fossil fuels, and that is because there is no alternative. They need these fuels to heat and cool their barns, dry their grain and power their irrigation equipment. This is not something the Conservatives are tossing around, these are indeed the facts.
Those who think those numbers are bad can hold my jerry can. The newest Parliamentary Budget Officer's report on the impact of the carbon tax on farming said that between this year and the year 2030, agriculture will be paying $1 billion in carbon taxes alone.
The Liberals are saying that these costs on farmers, which they do not even believe exist, while the Parliamentary Budget Officer confirms they do exist, are not impacting the price of food and not the reason we are seeing these high costs at the grocery store shelves.
I do not know anyone, other than maybe those in the Liberal-NDP coalition, who thinks that adding taxes will somehow reduce prices. However, that is exactly what they are saying. As part of this discussion, the Prime Minister has threatened the CEOs of the major grocery chains in Canada, saying that, if they do not stabilize grocery prices by Thanksgiving, there will be tax consequences. He is threatening to increase taxes on the grocery store CEOs and the major chains in Canada.
Is there an issue with competition in Canada? Yes, I would agree with that. We need to do things to improve competition in Canada, which always brings down prices. However, do the government members honestly think and truly believe that if they increase taxes on Sobeys, Loblaws, Costco and Walmart, the companies are just going to absorb those additional costs? There is no scenario where an industry just says, “The government is right; we are going to pay more taxes, and thanks very much.” Of course they are not. They are going to pass them on to the consumers, and that is going to drive up costs even more.
I want to emphasize the real-life consequences these taxes are having on those whom we are relying on to grow the food that we use to feed our families; these growers certainly play a key role in Canada's ability to help feed the world. A fruit and vegetable grower in my riding showed me their power bills for the last few months. They were paying $5,000 a month in carbon taxes alone, plus $800 of GST on top of that carbon tax; it is a tax on a tax. The grower has now decided to close their market in the winter months because they simply cannot afford to stay open. That is fresh fruit and vegetables at a nearby farmers' market and grower, which my rural constituents were able to go to without having to drive into the city. That is now going to be closed, forcing constituents to drive even further. It makes a lot of sense if climate change and reducing emissions is their goal.
A farmer in southern Alberta told me he paid $140,000 in carbon taxes last year, meaning that he could not invest that money in new equipment, which would have been more energy efficient and more fuel efficient. More frustrating for this grower is that he was hoping to have that money to put aside for his daughter, who wants to take over the family farm. She would have been the fifth generation to take over that farm. Now, instead of having that money to invest in his operation, improve efficiency, reduce emissions and help the next generation, where has that gone? It has gone to the Liberal government into general revenue. In fact, again, if reducing emissions and addressing climate change is their ultimate goal, this is doing the exact opposite.
There is another interesting thing. The Liberals want to increase taxes on the grocery CEOs; however, many of the grocery stores in Canada are actually owned by local franchisees. I went to visit the operator at one of the larger Sobeys operations in my riding, to see how things were going. His energy bill has gone up $6,000 a month as a result of the carbon tax. He is trying to absorb those costs, because he is a local business owner. However, he says that, eventually, he is going to have to pass this on to the consumers; otherwise, it is going to have an impact on what he can pay his employees or what he can contribute to local community initiatives, service clubs, sports teams, youth organizations and all those things that business owners try to help support.
The Liberals think that these costs are just magically absorbed by those farmers and small business owners, but they are not; of course, these costs are passed on to the consumer. That is why we see apples up 61%, carrots up 72%, and oranges and potatoes up 76%, just in time for Thanksgiving. The Liberals need to realize that when they increase the tax on the farmer, trucker, manufacturer and retailer, those costs are passed directly on to the consumer. Canadians are paying the price for that.
We are seeing that with millions of Canadians. Seven million Canadians went to a food bank last year. In Alberta, food bank use is up 70%. The food bank in Calgary is supporting 700 families every single day. These are numbers that I know the operators of food banks across the country have never seen before.
In conclusion, if the Liberals really cared about grocery prices and family farms, they could do something right now: They could eliminate their carbon taxes and certainly their plans to quadruple the carbon tax. That, not more red tape and bureaucracy, would make food more affordable for Canadians.
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