44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 23, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-56, the Liberals' so-called affordable housing and groceries bill. I say “so-called” because nothing in the bill would make housing affordable or reduce grocery prices.
After eight long years of the Liberals, Canadians are facing an unprecedented affordability crisis. Let us look at the facts. After eight years of the Liberals, housing costs have doubled; rent has doubled and mortgage payments have more than doubled, up 150% compared to eight years ago. After eight years of the Liberals, Canadians have seen 40-year-high inflation. Meanwhile, interest rates are rising at the fastest rate in Canadian history and have reached a 22-year high. Interest rates are projected to be hiked even further. When it comes to essentials like groceries, prices have gone up a staggering 70%, resulting in nearly two million Canadians a month going to the food bank. What Canadians are facing after eight years of the Liberals is a dire situation in which Canadians are struggling to put food on the table and to keep a roof over their head.
This begs the question “Why is it that Canada faces an affordability crisis?” There is one person who bears primary responsibility, and that is the Prime Minister. It is the Prime Minister who has created an affordability crisis as a result of eight years of reckless spending. This is the Prime Minister who, in eight years, has run up the largest deficits and has managed to double the national debt. So reckless and so out of control is the spending on the part of the Prime Minister that he has managed to do the seemingly impossible: rack up more debt in eight years than all of his predecessors over the previous 150 years combined. This is the Prime Minister who thought it was a good idea to pay for his out-of-control reckless spending by printing, through the Bank of Canada, $600 billion. As a result, the money supply has increased eight times faster than economic growth. Is it any wonder that, in the face of that, Canadians have seen 40-year-high inflation and interest rates rising faster than ever before?
That is the record of the Liberals after eight years. That is what they have to show. They have manufactured a cost of living crisis, and everyday Canadians are hurting. In the face of that, what have the Liberals done and what are they doing to address the issue of affordability, the mess they have created? Earlier this week, Canadians got the answer, and that is based upon the finance minister's presenting the government's fall economic statement. What did we get from the finance minister? We got $20 billion in new deficit spending on top of the more than $100 billion of deficit spending that the finance minister has racked up in the three years that she has held the portfolio. There is $20 billion in new deficit spending that pours fuel on the inflationary fire and is sure to keep interest rates high. There is $20 billion in new deficit spending, notwithstanding the fact that even the Bank of Canada is calling on the Liberals to rein in their spending, and has made clear to the Liberal government that its reckless spending and money printing are contributing to inflation.
There is $20 billion in new deficit spending, notwithstanding Scotiabank's issuing a report recently that confirmed that a full 2% of interest rates is directly attributable to the government's inflationary spending. Canadians have been hit, after eight years of the Liberals, with a double whammy: high inflation and high interest rates. They are now also being hit with a third whammy by way of the Liberals' punitive carbon tax. It is a tax that the Liberals falsely sold as a means to reduce GHGs, but we know, after eight years of the Liberals, that GHGs have gone up and not down. I would remind Liberals across the way, who talk so much about climate action, that the COP27 rankings ranked Canada, after eight years of the Liberals, at 58 out of 63 countries.
However, I digress. The carbon tax is nothing more than another tax, but I qualify that because it is not quite that. It is, after all, a tax that disproportionately impacts lower- and middle-income Canadians. It is a tax that increases the cost of everything, including essentials such as food, fuel and heating. It is a tax that, according to both the Bank of Canada and the Parliamentary Budget Officer, is exacerbating inflation. Despite that and despite the fact that Canadians are facing an affordability crisis, with nearly half of Canadians $200 away from insolvency, the Liberal government's plan is to quadruple its punitive carbon tax for hard-working, everyday Canadians.
I say to the Liberals across the way that I would be keenly interested to see whether one of them can stand up in their place and explain to Canadians how the policies of the government, namely money printing, massive deficits and the quadrupling of the carbon tax, all of which are exacerbating inflation and increasing interest rates, are a policy prescription that is going to make life more affordable for Canadians. Very simply, those policies are making life less affordable. Canadians are paying a very dear price after eight years of the costly policies of the Liberal Prime Minister.
After eight long years of the Liberals, costs are up. Rent is up, taxes are up and debt is up. The government's time is up.
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- Nov/23/23 3:40:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am glad the hon. parliamentary secretary referred to changes that are being made to the Competition Act, because the amendments put forward in the bill pertaining to the Competition Act are copied and pasted from the private member's bill introduced by the member for Bay of Quinte. Very simply, it would remove the efficiencies defence with respect to mergers. That could, in the long term, have an impact, an increase in competition in the groceries sector, and therefore have some long-term impact upon prices, but Canadians cannot wait for five years or seven years down the road. They need relief today, and all the government has offered them is the quadrupling of the carbon tax.
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- Nov/23/23 3:41:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, with respect to the GST measure on rental housing, that is something the Liberals promised six years ago and are only now acting on it. It was provided for by the bill put forward by the leader of His Majesty's loyal opposition, the building homes not bureaucracy act. That bill is a common-sense piece of legislation aimed at getting gatekeepers out of the way by tying infrastructure dollars to the number of homes actually built.
The Liberal government has thrown around billions of dollars, yet there were fewer houses built in the past year than were built in 1972 when Canada's population was half of what it is today. The record of the Liberals is to build up bureaucracy and not houses. The plan of the Leader of the Opposition is to get homes built for Canadians.
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- Nov/23/23 3:43:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, with respect, the member should get his facts straight. A good place to start would be to review the report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. It established that more than 60% of Canadians lose out with the carbon tax. In other words, they pay more than they get back from the rebate.
What needs to happen, and what Canadians are asking for, is that we axe the tax, and that is something Conservatives are going to do to keep—
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