44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 13, 2023 02:00PM
- 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 3:00:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, he has missed all his targets, except for the one year when Canadians were locked down. His own environment commissioner says he will come nowhere near meeting his 2030 targets, and now Canada ranks 58 out of 64 on the climate change performance index.
His tax is not working, nor does he seem to understand how food arrives. Food does not come from the grocery store. The average farmer in Canada has to spend $150,000 on his carbon tax for barns and drying, and that all has to go to consumers.
Will he pass our common-sense bill to axe the tax on food?
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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 4:36:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's speech and his comments recognizing the huge impact this has had on the agriculture industry, which is the backbone of my riding. So many of my agriculture producers are being challenged, whether because of a port strike in Vancouver, the restrictions, the worries about a possible port strike in Montreal and the huge costs that are being put on our farmers, which increase their costs.
As the member knows, increasing their costs and transportation costs is going to eventually increase costs to consumers. Ultimately, that is going to put more people into food banks. I wonder if the member would expand on that.
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- Dec/13/23 5:48:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, throughout the conversation, we have taken a look at our farmers and the huge operating cost increases we have seen. They have increased 21.2% in just 2022 alone, which is a huge increase, and that cost gets filtered down to people. I would be interested to hear from the member.
I have heard from many people in my farming community, particularly now at Christmas. We are sitting here at Christmas time and families are creating Christmas goodies for their families. Over the years, people used to put butter in their Christmas goodies. Now they are using margarine. Part of that was the cost. Part of it was also with respect to possible issues with the product. Ultimately, the costs have continued. Now we see with margarine, a lot of it made with canola oil, the price has increased. I talked with a constituent just yesterday on the aspect of increased costs.
I am interested to know how the member sees where that cost continually gets increased when moved from different products. The product being produced for our consumers is being belittled such that there is a huge impact on Canadians, and the huge taxes are being put upon them.
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