Senator Housakos: Government leader, the question is not employment or unemployment. Canadians can work as hard as they want, but when they go to the grocery store, they can’t afford to buy food to feed their families.

And you want to go into a statistics war? Did you know that in the month of August, the cost of lettuce went up 94%? You want to talk about statistics? Rent in this country has gone up 6.5% in the last couple of months. I can go on and on and on, if you want to go through every single commodity in this country, not to mention the fact that mortgages are costing Canadians 31% more right now than they did a few months ago.

The fact of the matter is that when it comes to the cost of living right now in this country, working-class and poor Canadians are suffering to a degree we haven’t seen before, and for the first time in more than 153 years, young people in this country are feeling pessimistic and hopeless, and that they will not be able to aspire to the kind of lifestyle and success that their parents and grandparents had.

We talked earlier about inflation and the runaway debts and deficits of this government, and as usual, you’re blaming the cost of living on global issues, international issues and the cost of oil and energy. Well, your carbon tax on oil and energy has not helped.

Hon. Leo Housakos: Government leader, no one is questioning the validity of a grocery rebate at a time when this government has created or helped create such great inflation, and Canadians are suffering, but we have seen time and time again in this place that when you pass legislation with all the best intent in the world that legislation isn’t clear and transparent in giving directives to those that are going to apply this particular bill and apply this particular program with clear regulations.

We are just asking if it wouldn’t make sense to have some regulations and guidelines to make sure that all these billions of dollars would go to a grocery rebate and not to a hardware store rebate.

And there is nothing wrong for people in need who might need tools, Senator Cardozo, but there is something wrong when you take a government program, and then it is used, for example, to go on a vacation or to buy accessories for an automobile or to buy sporting goods, for example, for entertainment and sports reasons.

Would the government leader agree that we need to attach to the title of this bill clear guidance to make sure that all the money goes for grocery rebates and nothing else?