44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 13, 2023 02:00PM
- Dec/13/23 2:26:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is yet another example. The Prime Minister has had eight years to build that bypass, but has not even begun to do so. That is so typical of this Prime Minister, who makes announcements and spends loads of money but produces zero results. The same goes for affordability. He spent $87 billion on housing affordability, but that just doubled the cost. According to the Bank of Canada, the cost of housing is the worst it has been in 41 years.
Will the Prime Minister finally reverse his inflationary policies, which have doubled the cost of housing for Canadians?
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- Dec/13/23 2:28:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the audacity of the Conservative leader knows no bounds. Just last week, he voted against a national school food program, and now he rises to talk about affordability. Let us be clear. The Conservative leader has no long-term vision for this country, with or without the glasses.
It takes more than a couple of bags of McDonald's to feed Canadians. That is why we are going to continue to step up and be there with investments for Canadians, while he talks about cuts and austerity, and then goes and votes for cuts and austerity.
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- Dec/13/23 2:55:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have taken real actions to hold grocery CEOs to account with more competition, because more competition means lower prices, more choice and more innovative products and services for Canadians.
Our affordability legislation will empower the Competition Bureau to hold grocers accountable and prioritize consumers' interests. The fall economic statement proposes further amendments to the Competition Act to crack down on predatory pricing and better respond to anti-competitive mergers and more.
We are ensuring that Canadians have more competitive options, and we are limiting excess profits by corporations at the expense of Canadians.
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- Dec/13/23 3:09:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, he is doing the same thing he has done for eight years. He spent $87 billion on housing affordability to double housing costs. We have fewer homes per capita than we did when he took office, the fewest homes of any country in the G7. He doubled the rent, doubled mortgage payments and doubled the needed down payment to the point where the Bank of Canada reports this week that Canada has the worst housing affordability in 41 years, and rentals.ca reveals that it is now more expensive to rent one room in a shared apartment than it was eight years ago to rent the entire apartment for oneself.
When will he realize that ballooning inflation and the bureaucracy does not build homes?
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time that my colleagues have allowed me to discuss the study from the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, entitled “Grocery Affordability: Examining Rising Food Costs In Canada”.
I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, who has done a great deal of work on this subject specifically and certainly on the importance of the grocery code of conduct, for example, to try to address food affordability issues for Canadian consumers.
I feel it is important to discuss this study here today because of some information that has come out most recently regarding food inflation and food costs for Canadians. When we completed this study in June this past spring, there was some pretty difficult information for Canadian consumers to hear on the increasing costs and increasing questions and concerns around affordability for Canadians and their inability to feed their families. However, that has become even more acute with the information that has come out recently regarding Canada's food price report, which came out last week. It revealed that, in 2024, Canadian families will pay $700 more for groceries than they did the previous year. Even the work we did on this initial study last spring is now almost out of date and obsolete, as food prices have continued to rise. We see now that food inflation will go up again next year between 5% and 7% depending on the commodity we are purchasing.
As part of this study, we were waiting for an additional report from Dalhousie University and Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. The executive summary on the results of his study says that he and Dalhousie University have forecast that inflationary pressures and uncompetitive policies, like the carbon tax, on growing, processing and transporting food will increase the cost of wholesale food by 34% on average for all food categories by 2025.Thirty-four per cent is the increase in food costs that Canadian consumers are going to be facing over the next two years. This comes at a time when we have about two million Canadians relying on a food bank every single month, and when one in five Canadians is skipping meals because they cannot afford to put food on the table.
However, I think the stats we heard in this study are even more concerning. As part of this study, we had testimony from Daily Bread Food Bank and Second Harvest. Their testimony was that, due to the dire situation, according to their figures, “food banks and other food-related programs across Canada served [5.1 million] people per month last year”. I know we are talking about two million Canadians relying on a food bank every single month, but when we include other food insecurity programs, like Second Harvest, that number goes to more than five million Canadians who are using a food security program or charity like a food bank every single month. Now, as a result of the additional information we have been provided, we are going to see higher food prices, up to maybe 34%.
Again, from testimony from the Daily Bread Food Bank and Second Harvest, they are expecting the number of people using food banks and other food-related charities to climb to 8.2 million Canadians, which is roughly a 60% increase. Can members imagine that, because of inflationary policies and policies like the carbon tax, in Canada, where we have the ability to not only feed our own residents but help feed the world, we could have more than eight million Canadians relying on a regular basis on food banks and food charities to be able to feed their families? I find it to be unfathomable that in Canada we would be seeing those types of numbers. I hope everybody in the House will see those numbers as absolutely shocking.
The Conservatives put forward a number of recommendations last June that we asked the government to follow-up on to try to address some of these concerning trends we are seeing. I would like to mention a couple of the recommendations we put forward that I thought were quite specific and would go a great way in addressing this crisis we are facing.
Recommendation 1 said, “That the Government of Canada remove the carbon tax that is applied to all food inputs and production including all farm fuels and other...aspects of the food supply system.” Recommendation 2 was that the Government of Canada complete an economic assessment on the impact of the carbon tax and the clean fuel standard, carbon tax 2, and how this increase will affect the cost of food production, the price of food and the entire food supply chain. Recommendation 3 said, “That the Government of Canada immediately reverse its policy on front-of-package labelling.”
There is only one thing we missed, which I think we would have added as a fourth recommendation had we known about it at the time. We now know the Liberal government is putting a ban on plastic food packaging, particularly for fresh fruit and vegetables, which will add an additional $8 billion to food costs. I want to really stress this point to everyone in the House and anyone who may be watching. This plastics ban is not the single-use plastics ban that the government has now been forced to reverse as a result of the decision at the court because it is unconstitutional. This is another ban on plastics.
I want Canadians to picture this. As a result of this plastics ban on fresh fruit and vegetables, Canadians will be unable to purchase products they rely on, essential products they purchase every day, such as prepackaged salads, cucumbers and bananas. Many of these products are transported to Canada from outside of our country. We do not grow bananas in our climate. We have not quite gotten there with greenhouses. Because of these plastic packaging rules, companies outside of Canada will not upend their systems to meet an incomprehensible rule that they do not want to meet and cannot meet. Canadians will be going to the grocery stores and seeing empty grocery store shelves because we will no longer be able to import these products.
The secondary concern, as a result of front-of-pack labelling and this plastics ban adding another $14 billion in costs on the food industry, is that Canadians are going to see skyrocketing food prices. We see the stats from Dr. Sylvain Charlebois on the carbon tax and other policies driving up food costs by 34%, and now we will add on other layers of bureaucracy. It is nonsensical and not based on science. The fresh produce industry cannot meet this deadline being imposed on it.
At the same time, the Liberal loyalists in the Senate did everything they could to kill Bill C-234, which would save Canadian farmers $1 billion by 2030 on the carbon tax. We heard the Prime Minister in question period today basically questioning the carbon tax bills that farmers are sending us every single day. He said he does not think they are being forthright on what their carbon tax numbers are; he thinks they are too high. He should go out to every farm in Canada that is spending tens of thousands of dollars a month on carbon taxes to heat and cool barns, dry grains and operate family farms. These are the real-life consequences of the government's policies on carbon taxes and the impact they are having on everyday Canadians' ability to feed their families.
I thought it was very important that we have an opportunity to address the study we tabled last June and try to update some of the numbers in the study that have now become obsolete as a result of the new data that has become available. Food prices are not only going up 5% to 7%. As a result of the data and the studies that have been done and as a result of the Liberals' carbon tax and other punitive policies, such as front-of-pack labelling and the ban on P2 plastics, Canadians are going to find it much more difficult to feed themselves, and millions more Canadians are going to be relying on food banks and charities.
After eight years, the Prime Minister is simply not worth the cost.
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- Dec/13/23 4:38:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am here today to talk about grocery affordability and examining rising food costs in Canada. The agriculture committee submitted this report in June after a fairly lengthy study.
This is a topic that has been near and dear to my heart for many years. I come from a produce background. Having a family farm and a produce business feeding Canadians is something that my family has prided ourselves on for our entire lives. It has been our livelihood. Making sure we can sell an affordable product to Canadians so Canadian families can go to the grocery store and afford to buy healthy, nutritious food at a reasonable cost is something that all farm producers want in this country.
Unfortunately, we are in a time right now when we are not seeing that. Families are struggling. I hear this on a daily basis. They are struggling to afford the basic necessities, to heat their homes, to pay their mortgages and to afford food.
Recently, I talked to someone from my community who runs one of the food banks. I asked him how things have been and if he has noticed an increase in demand for food. He said that they are so busy that he has not even had the time to sit down to look at the numbers. The food just keeps coming and people are showing up at the door for food. He said he hears from folks that they just need to get food for one month or one week, and that they will be okay in a couple of weeks, they just a bit of food right now. He said he tells people they can visit the food bank as long as they need to. He does not want them putting money on their credit cards and racking up credit card bills to eat. They can go to the food bank as long as they need to and pay off their bills. The food bank will be there to support them to make sure they can feed their families and kids.
That, to me, was very striking. Never in my lifetime have I imagined, living in Canada, that I would see people suffering so badly that they could not afford food to feed their families, especially when I know Canada produces some of the best in the world and we have access to fresh food here like we have never before.
One of the things making it more expensive for farmers to produce their food is the carbon tax. That was talked about in this report. I look at all the steps that are taken along the journey at my farm, in particular, speaking from experience, and when the cost of fuel increases, it impacts the cost of doing business. It is not just on the fuel we use to bring the goods from the field into the warehouse, from the warehouse into the packing plant and then from the packing plant to food distribution centres, it is all along the supply chain.
Packaging is one area where I have noticed an increase over the years, especially during COVID. People tried to get packaging for their goods to sell to consumers, consumers were eating more at home instead of at restaurants, and when the buying habits of consumers changed, it put a big demand on grocery stores and producers to make sure they could keep getting the goods to grocery stores. The cost of packaging increased partially not only because of the increased cost due to the carbon tax in getting the packaging and all the steps it takes to make the packaging, but also because of demand for the packaging.
The reason I bring up the cost of packaging is that we have recently seen that the government has a new plastics ban proposed, not the first one that was struck down by the Supreme Court, but the second plastics packaging ban. One of the recommendations in this report was, “ensuring [the government's] plastic reduction requirements are attainable by extending the implementation timeline for a single-use plastics ban and working with retailers to ensure that commercially viable alternatives to plastics, in particular for packaging designed to extend the shelf-life of food and limit food waste, will be available in the needed quantities.”
I would like to take a moment to educate those who may be watching at home right now. This proposed plastics ban for the fruit and vegetable industry is new. It is not the single-use plastics ban. What consumers need to know is that two-thirds of the fresh produce we eat and consume in this country is imported from other countries. While we have a great area in Leamington where we grow a lot of vegetables in greenhouses, and every year we are seeing more and more greenhouse vegetable production come on line, we are still reliant on most of our food coming as imports from other countries.
The average person does not realize, before food ever hits their grocery store shelves, it has been on a ship coming from somewhere across the world. Whether it is food from South America, South Africa or other parts of Africa, and a lot comes from South America, it sits in refrigerated containers on ships going across the ocean to get to Canada. Then it has to be unloaded at a port and put on a truck. Those trucks come from the United States, and sometimes they came through Montreal or B.C., but for the most part, they come through the U.S. A lot of it comes into Toronto at the Ontario Food Terminal.
To keep vegetables and fruit fresh for their journey, and it can be weeks on end before they ever see a grocery store shelf, they need to be in packaging that is resilient and that will hold up the quality of the produce.
Produce is mostly water. It is just a fact of life. Fruit and vegetables are mostly water. I do not know the exact percentage, but it is about 90% or so. If we are trying to ship water in the form of fruits and vegetables and trying to keep it fresh to get it onto the grocery store shelves, it needs to be in something that is durable to preserve that freshness and quality.
The number one consumed product in the world is bananas, and they have to be shipped in plastic to stop them from ripening on route so that we can ripen them once they get into the country. If this new plastics ban goes ahead, we will not see bananas on the shelves anymore. In fact, in the U.S. people have said, and some suppliers have said, that if the plastics ban on produce goes forth in Canada, we will not be seeing things on shelves such as bagged salads and all the premade things, such as precut veggies and precut fruit.
We are not going to see berries in clamshells. Grapes come in bags. Some potatoes come in plastic bags. It is for a reason, which is to keep it fresh in our home so we have time to consume it before it goes bad. If this ban were to go through, we would see huge amounts of food waste, which would increase greenhouse gas emissions. We would see up to 50% food waste, and the greenhouse gas emissions from food waste would double.
This would also have a catastrophic impact on our food security in this country. We are not just talking about affordability for Canadians. We are now talking about food security because of the NDP-Liberal government's own policies, which are creating this scenario.
I also want to touch on the carbon tax. I have some folks in my riding who have written to me recently to talk about those increases to the cost of their production that they are not able to recoup. They are grain farmers, and one grain farmer reached out to tell me that their gas bill last month for drying their corn was $39,000. That was just for one month. The carbon tax portion of that was $10,000 for one month, and that farmer will never be able to recoup that $10,000. They will not be able to put it back into their business to innovate and make sure they are doing what they can to help the environment.
I have a chicken farmer in my riding who gave me his gas bills for the whole year. He is paying $15,000 in carbon taxes this year just to heat one barn.
The government's own policies, whether the new plastics ban or the carbon tax, are creating unaffordable food for Canadians, and the government should be doing more to make sure that Canadians can afford to feed themselves by changing its policies and axing the carbon tax. Canadians know that Conservatives would axe the carbon tax. We would make life more affordable for Canadians because, after eight years of this Prime Minister, he is just not worth the cost.
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Mr. Speaker, if the member takes the time to actually read the report that was brought forward in the form of a concurrence motion, he will find out that it is about affordability. That is, in fact, how I started my comments. I was talking about the issue of affordability in Bill C-56, the affordability act, and how that legislation was being filibustered by the Conservatives through a concurrence motion. The reason for this is that the Conservatives do not care about the issues of the day that Canadians are concerned about. Then I started to explain it.
Maybe members on the other side do not all fully understand it because they are following the lead that is coming from the leader of the Conservative Party's office and that House leadership team over there. Canadians have a right to know that the pattern we are witnessing in terms of the behaviour, the issues that are being brought up and the manner in which they are being brought up definitely deal with the issue of MAGA politics. The member across the way might disagree. Maybe he should talk to his leader, and his leader can explain exactly what the Conservative agenda really is.
When we think of affordability, let us think in terms of what the member for Foothills said. He tries to give an impression about the cost of food and inflation. He cites a report and says there would be a 34% increase in the next couple of years. Then he tries to say that this is a report that he was kind of quoting from.
I will tell members what the Conservatives are very, very good at, which is the same thing that Donald Trump is very good at: sending out information that is misleading. I am very kind when I say that. I could think of a lot of other words to use, so I am being generous. Let me suggest the reason. Let us think about it: The member is trying to plant the seeds of fear that the price on pollution is costing huge amounts of money toward the issue of food inflation.
Some of the members across the way actually believe the leader of the Conservative Party. I understand there is an obligation to listen to the leader because, after all, he is their leader. However, that does not mean they have to believe everything he says. I do not want to get into personalities, but it is like a snake oil salesperson. Let us think about this. Let us think in terms of—
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