Debates of Sept. 25th, 2025

Opposition Motion—Food Taxation

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. He spoke about a community that is particularly important to me, since I come from the riding of Shefford, which is home to fantastic rural communities that support Quebec agriculture.

We have heard from people in the farming community about what is really causing prices to go up, which we have seen over the years. Input prices are up, with fertilizer prices quadrupling as a result of the conflict with Ukraine. Also, heat waves and droughts in California and Quebec have increased the price of lettuce by 30% to 50%. Every day, Quebec produce growers experience the impact of climate change in their fields.

People in the agricultural sector and the Bloc Québécois are calling for regulation of the major grocery chains' profit margins. Here is another idea: Protect farmers by investing in food sovereignty and rewarding them for their good environmental practices.

I would like my colleague to comment on that.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have never met a farmer who did not know how to recycle. I have never met a farmer who did not already implement best practices and care for the land they are tilling. Farmers rely on the weather. They rely on good crops that they produce. They put in seed at the beginning of the year, hedging their bets on something they are going to be selling at the end of the year, and the Liberal government has completely cut the legs out from underneath them.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was intrigued by the comments the member for Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan made regarding supply chains and infrastructure.

I am wondering, in his time in elected office, and even before that, whether he has seen any major investment in railway infrastructure, or working with the private sector to see railway infrastructure improve. At a time when Canada needs to protect its supply chains, is the government really doing enough to get our goods to market, especially the Asian markets, where we are going to make money and see more Canadians prosper?

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is aware that I was a city councillor in the city of Moose Jaw, and also the mayor, and that Moose Jaw prides itself on being a rail city and a transportation hub.

There have been challenges getting product out to ports because of the imbalance. One of the best things that could help our rail and help farmers get product out to market is having a pipeline across Canada, so that is a very good question. Saskatchewan is about food, fuel and fertilizer, and we are being hindered by the current Liberal government.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Secretary of State (Sport)]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to wish the entire Franco-Ontarian community a happy Franco-Ontarian Day. I also want to congratulate all francophones and francophiles, like me, from this province of Ontario on the 50th anniversary of their flag.

I would also like to thank my friend and neighbour from Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford for congratulating and encouraging our amazing women's rugby players. They are doing an amazing job. They defeated one of the world's best teams, New Zealand, the Black Ferns. It was a really shocking defeat, actually. I was proud of them, and I was certainly cheering for them and knew they could do it, but they are shocking the world. Our rugby 15s team is amazing. Our rugby 7s players, and many of the women play on both teams, are, a couple of times already, Olympic medallists. They are competing against the world's best team in England this weekend, and I wish them all the very best. I would ask everybody in the House to say, “Go, Canada, go”, on three: one, two, three.

[Some hon. members]

Go, Canada, go.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Burlington North—Milton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that was a good show from everybody.

We are here talking about the Conservative opposition motion. It is tough, because I disagree with the premise of the motion. The Conservatives are once again fabricating affordability. There are very real affordability challenges that Canadians are facing, but the Conservatives are blaming them on simply the wrong thing. If they ask any food scientist or any poverty reduction analyst, they will tell them that one of the number one drivers of food inflation these days is climate change, yet the text of the motion makes absolutely no reference to climate change and the impacts that extreme weather events are having on food prices or on the yields for Canadian farmers or farmers around the world.

In fact the motion just makes up a bunch of so-called taxes on food, taxes that do not exist. Canadians go to the grocery store. They know that their groceries and produce are not taxed at the grocery store, so it is really a false notion, a false flag, and it is something I am happy to talk about because our government is working very hard to address the affordability challenges that Canadians are facing these days, with real solutions, not the bluster and the made-up, fake notions the Conservatives have put forth.

Not only are the Conservatives just making things up; they are also, once again, shamelessly working for the oil and gas and plastics lobby. There is nothing wrong with reducing plastics pollution. I have spent a lot of time on the water, and there is always waterborne plastic floating in our waterways. We can do a lot to reduce that, and we ought to. I do not agree with the Conservatives' “make plastic polluting free again” motions they bring forward in the House on behalf of the plastics and oil and gas lobby time and time again.

I also do not agree with their efforts to roll back the farmer-led and ag sector-led changes that are ensuring that our agriculture sector in Canada is competitive, clean, green and sustainable. Farmers in Canada are on the front lines of climate change. They know full well that the changing weather and extreme weather are having a negative impact on their yields and a negative impact on the price of food for Canadians. That is what we have been talking about today: real measures that Canadians are seeking, to address the affordability challenges at the grocery store.

I find it very hypocritical that probably 75% of the questions we received in question period today were about the rising use of food banks in Canada, which is a real concern. Food Banks Canada not only serves Canadians; it also makes recommendations to the Government of Canada and to governments across the country. The Conservatives are very happy to say that food bank use is on the rise, but then they ignore the first page of the report, which is their opportunity to lean in on some of the recommendations that poverty-reduction experts are making.

Namely, the experts want us to continue to bolster our social safety net. They want to make sure that services like child care, reduced-cost child care, reduced-cost dental care and $10-a-day child care are more available for Canadian families. They know that the tax cut we made earlier this year supports families and affordability, and they also know that when we build more affordable housing, we make a direct impact on affordability for families.

My colleagues on this side of the House have been focusing on the government supports and commitments to the men and women who work very hard to put food on the table for their family. To our farm families right across this great nation, and particularly to those in Burlington North—Milton West, I want to say thank you for all the hard work and determination they put forth in order to produce the food we consume as Canadians. Our hard-working and skilled farmers right across the country form the foundation of Canada's food system. I love shopping local. I will be home on Saturday, so I hope I will see some Miltonians out at the world-renowned Milton Farmers' Market.

Our farmers are going to keep feeding Canadians and the world. We need to continue to partner with them in the face of the extreme weather we have been seeing in recent years, and that is why many of the changes we have been making to the ag sector are farmer-led and farmer-informed. We only have to look at the fires in western Canada and right across this country this summer to see how vulnerable our lands are to extreme weather.

It has been said before: Canadian farmers are on the front lines of climate change. They know full well the impacts of climate change and what they are on our food security, but it is also true that in recent years their farms and farm operations have been devastated by a series of climate disasters, from floods to droughts and forest fires, and this past year was no exception, with severe droughts devastating farmers' crops in key production regions across the country. These are just a few examples of the challenges our producers are having with respect to production.

When my family settled in southwestern Ontario in the 1950s, they were Dutch, so they went straight to the farms and started working on them until they could afford some land of their own, and they farmed apples. The cost of apples is going up, and when the cost of apples is going up at this time of year, we know the apples are mostly not domestic, Canadian, ones, so with respect to a lot of the measures that the Conservatives put forth, such as bringing back plastic pollution for packaging on Canadian foods, and whether or not they would help, I would posit that they would not. They would only make plastic pollution more prevalent in our waterways, but that would not have an impact on Canadian apples. It would have an impact on pollution levels.

Provincial governments and other jurisdictions made changes to the rules and regulations on grocery bags. Everybody remembers how back in the day we all used to have hundreds of bags underneath our sink. Now we do not, and we have less plastic pollution as a result, because stores put a small price on a plastic bag and offered alternatives like reusable bags and paper bags, which are far more sustainable. We can do the same thing with our food packaging, but unfortunately and shamelessly, the Conservatives are here on behalf of the plastics industry to suggest that plastic is cheaper. It is far less sustainable to have plastic packaging, and the Conservatives' motion is actually quite ignorant in that regard.

Speaking of ignorance, we are talking about hunger and about food security. The number one way that poverty reduction analysts right across this country and right across the world want to address food insecurity, particularly in schools, is to have a well-funded national school food program. In my jurisdiction, there are lots of great providers. I know that they are doing a great job. I occasionally go to schools and hand out snacks, and school food programs are having a really positive impact on the health and well-being of students. They are certainly having a positive impact on learning outcomes. Teachers and educators across the country have indicated that they have a positive impact on students' reading, writing, math and science grades. They go up when the kids are not hungry. It is not a surprise.

I am also a huge advocate for physical activity in schools, as the secretary of state for sport. I know that when I was a kid, if I did not get a bit of physical activity at recess, if it was raining or there was other inclement weather outside, I was stir-crazy in class. It helps me a lot in my work to get out, even just for a three-kilometre or four-kilometre run with some of my friends who are right back here behind me. I thank my running pals for backing me up today.

Whether it is through physical activity in schools or healthy school foods, our government is here for kids, for educators and for parents, and that is a real affordability measure. Two hundred dollars a month can be saved when national school food programs are implemented in our spaces. They have a direct, positive impact on learning outcomes and on the health of kids. I just cannot imagine how the leader of the Conservative Party could stand up today and talk about how his parents were teachers, yet instruct all his caucus, the entire Conservative Party, to vote against a national school food program. It is just astonishing.

How can one be against healthy food for kids? If someone is going to stand up in the House every day and say that Canadians are having a tough time at the grocery store, which may be true, let us find a way to help. Conservatives stand up in the House and use the report from Food Banks Canada, saying it says this, that and the other, but the report also says that we should bolster our social safety net, build more affordable housing, focus on a northern food security program and support Canadians with things like $10-a-day child care, dental care and a tax cut.

We are doing those things, and the Conservatives are voting against all of them, day in and day out, so I am urging the Conservatives to stop using the Food Banks Canada report as if it were in line with any of their policies or recommendations, because it is not. The Food Banks report does not say we should bring back plastic pollution. It does not say that we should roll back some of the ag-led and farmer-led measures that have reduced waste in farming.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe that my colleague across the floor indicated that it is wonderful that families can save $200 on groceries because the government is spending their tax dollars on a national blanket food program for children in school. Parents are the ones who should be earning an income to feed their kids the way they want to. The issues in schools right now are due to the government's poor management of its money and basically making it impossible for parents to have the funds they need.

We have a problem with what the Prime Minister said. He has failed and is not doing what he said he would to make food affordable across Canada for families.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Burlington North—Milton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is astonishing that today, members of the Conservative party have stood up and very willingly said they are against healthy food in schools for kids. They are saying they do not agree with a nation school food program that is feeding kids, particularly those who need it.

This is an evidence-based program. We used to be the only country in the world without a national school program. The Conservatives clearly do not understand economies of scale. They clearly have not been to a school lately to see how schools work, and they clearly have not talked to many parents or teachers, who know that when school food and healthy snacks are available in class, the learning outcomes are better, student health, mental health and attendance are better and outcomes are better for everybody.

This is an evidence-based program. I am not shocked that once again the Conservatives are rejecting it.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a school food program is all well and good, but when we are talking about what we can do to help people in our ridings cope with this inflation, I find it somewhat unfortunate that the Liberals keep reminding us that they are helping students in schools. It is like when they told us that they were helping seniors because they were giving more money to food banks. The Liberal government is very short-sighted.

That being said, we know that food prices have risen, particularly since the end of the COVID pandemic. Prices have surged by 26%. Where has most of this money done? It has gone into the pockets of the grocery giants. My colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé addressed this issue this morning. We really need to study the issue of the lack of competition and lack of players in the food industry. This affects food prices.

To help lower prices, we need to support our agricultural sector. What does my colleague think about the Bloc Québécois's ideas, such as encouraging local greenhouse production to reduce dependence on imports or protecting supply management? Yes, there is a law, but we must remain vigilant—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

I must interrupt the member to allow enough time for the response.

The hon. secretary of state.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Burlington North—Milton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec is a leader among all the provinces when it comes to school food programs. Over the past decade, there have been many examples of schools in Quebec offering breakfast, snacks or other food, and there is overwhelming evidence showing that this type of program yields positive results for students.

I agree with my colleague. Corporate greed is a problem when it comes to housing or the cost of living.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, our new government was elected to take real action to make life more affordable for Canadians. This includes taking concrete steps to address issues like food insecurity, such as with a national school food program.

We are committed to supporting children and families with access to healthy food. What positive impact has this program had on communities?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Burlington North—Milton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for asking the question in English. I am very pleased to offer him a response in English.

Mr. Speaker, I have been visiting schools across my riding and assisting when I can with the school food programs. They have a very significant positive impact on learning, nutrition and health, but they also save families money. Some researchers indicate it is up to $200 a month when school food programs are implemented really well across schools in our country. I am very proud that our government has done that.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time.

As we have heard today and repeatedly over the last little while, we know that Canadians are struggling desperately to put food on the table. This past August, food inflation managed to outpace overall inflation by 84%. The average family of four is now spending nearly $17,000 a year just on groceries. That is over $800 more than last year.

Abacus Data found that 61% of Canadians are not confident that they will be able to afford groceries six months from now. For households earning under $50,000, that number rises to 73%. There is no question that younger Canadians are feeling the pinch more than most, as 81% of those aged 18 to 29 regularly worry about being able to cover essentials. These are our neighbours, our friends and our families, and they are suffering under these poor Liberal policies on harmful food inflation.

The Liberals want us to believe that this is a global issue. The Liberals want us to believe that this issue can be solved by more government programs and more bureaucracy. However, here is the truth. Food prices in Canada have risen 48% faster than in the United States, but what is the Prime Minister's excuse?

Food banks are being depleted from coast to coast, and the latest annual survey from Food Banks Canada suggests that food bank use in Alberta over the past five years has been one of the highest increases in food bank use in Canada, up by 92%. A third of the food bank usage in Alberta is now by children. In Toronto, the Daily Bread Food Bank recorded roughly 3.5 million visits in 2024, a 273% increase since before the pandemic. In Ontario, 25% of food bank users are employed full time. This is absolutely shocking. Canadians are working full-time jobs and they still cannot afford groceries.

To note a real experience, my family has been blessed enough to be able to donate a side of beef to the local food bank every year for many years. This beef used to last over a week, and now it just flies off the shelf. It is gone in less than a day. The demand is hard to fathom.

Grocery store shelves tell the same story. Since March, sirloin beef is up 33%, canned soup is up 26%, coffee is up 22% and staples like potatoes and onions are up 16% and 11%. Lots of this food is produced locally and the price is still rising; it does not matter.

Families earning $75,000 or less now spend 57% of their income on essentials. Poverty and food insecurity have surged 40% in two years. Why is this happening? Inflation is a huge part of it. With their programs, the Liberals have spent money like drunken sailors, have increased the printing of money, have reduced our foreign exchange capacity dramatically and have made everything more expensive. All the inputs for farming, all the inputs for agriculture and all the imported foods we have are far more expensive than they used to be.

There is another failed Liberal policy that contributes to this. The industrial carbon tax is crushing Canadian farmers. It is also crushing Canadian truckers and food processors. Every step of the food chain, from growing crops to transporting goods to running grocery stores, gets hit with higher costs. Those costs do not disappear. They are passed directly to Canadian families, with higher prices at the till.

Fertilizer taxes and restrictions make it more expensive to grow and force farmers to change crops to something less productive. This is forcing a greater reliance on imports. Again, the foreign exchange problem makes that more expensive. Imports from countries that do not suffer from a massive industrial carbon tax make the competition and math untenable.

The Liberals' plastics ban and new packaging requirements make matters worse. Deloitte estimates the P2 ban could increase fresh produce costs by 34% due to waste and spoilage, reducing availability by over 50% and wasting half a million tonnes of food. Greenhouse gas emissions could rise by 50%, and health care costs related to food-borne illnesses could be over $1 billion a year.

Rural Canadians will be hit the hardest. The industry is struggling with $8 billion in front-of-pack labelling changes and compliance costs, and yet again, that will get passed on to families.

As I alluded to a minute ago, farmers are reeling. Net income for an average sized farm in my own province has decreased by nearly 41%, much higher than the national average. Farmers in my riding of Bow River have sounded the alarm that the industrial carbon tax balloons their costs to do business, costs such as power and fuel to run pivots and machinery, to heat their barns and shops and to dry their grains.

Stats Canada reports that the realized net income for Canadian farmers fell by $3.3 billion, an almost 26% drop. Total farm net income has decreased by just over 40% since 2023. At the same time, farm debt increased 14%, the largest increase since 1981. Canadian farmers are being taxed, regulated and forced to operate under impossible conditions while families pay more for groceries.

The Prime Minister once said that he would be held to account by the prices that Canadians pay at the grocery store. Well, the bill has come due, and Canadians cannot afford it.

The Conservatives will act, and we will scrap the punitive industrial carbon tax on farmers and truckers and the rest of industry. We will eliminate the fertilizer restrictions that strangle Canadian agriculture. We will cancel the food packaging and plastics taxes that make fresh produce more expensive.

I want to note that the number one way for families to afford food is to afford it in their homes, to not suffer from high inflation and to not suffer from declining paycheques, yet the Liberal government believes in the nanny-state mentality, which leads to the fallacy that a bureaucracy of scale is a better solution. We believe that families are better equipped to take care of themselves as long as the government gets out of their way and stops making their lives less affordable.

Food affordability is not an abstract statistic. It is about whether parents skip meals so their children can eat. It is about whether seniors choose between groceries and medication. It is about families working full time and still having to go to the food bank.

The Liberals have failed. The Conservatives will make life more affordable again by standing up for farmers, standing up for families and standing up for Canada's right to put food back on the table.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a little rich to hear Conservatives speak about affordability.

The Leader of the Opposition has never held a real job in his entire life, has never contributed to the Canadian economy, lives in taxpayer-funded housing and has collected a taxpayer-funded salary his entire working career. He was fired by the residents of his own riding and now is cosplaying as an Albertan.

Are members opposite not embarrassed to be speaking about affordability and food prices? Why do they still support the Leader of the Opposition, who is an embarrassment to hard-working Canadian families?

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that is awfully rich coming from those across the aisle. They had a past prime minister with drama school experience and have a current Prime Minister—

[An hon. member]

Teaching is a job, actually.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, teaching is a job, but is a drama school job a real job? The current Prime Minister has an elitist attitude and does not buy his own strawberries.

It does not change the attack from the across the aisle on food affordability. Canadians are suffering. That is related to inflation, and the inflation, by and large, is from all the policies of the previous decade of Liberal governments. That is just not acceptable.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech.

The House has heard all kinds of solutions for tackling rising prices, including the one proposed by my colleague from Shefford. One solution we must not forget is increasing seniors' buying power. Nowadays, seniors who receive only their old age security pension are very vulnerable. They cannot afford rent and groceries. They often have to make compromises when it comes to their medication.

Does my colleague agree that it is time for the Liberals to stop discriminating against one of the two classes of seniors and increase old age security for seniors aged 65 and up?

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, seniors are probably some of the most vulnerable members of the population, especially low-income seniors.

That still does not change the fact of the decline of the value of the Canadian dollar due to inflation, the overspending of the government over the last decade and the continued projection to double the deficit and thus increase the printing of money. That is what is further reducing the value of the Canadian dollar and its purchasing power. This is going to continue to make everything about life more unaffordable. We need to fix those policies and spend within our means, so the Canadian dollar will mean something again and so it can buy the food that all of the people of the country, children, the middle class, seniors, everyone, need to survive.

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals now want to change the story. They want to deflect. They want to talk about grocery prices by looking at what analysts say, what farm yields are and what the weather is doing. That was not what the Prime Minister promised. The Prime Minister did not say he would follow the analysts, the yields or the weather patterns. He said to judge him by the prices at the grocery store.

Would the member agree that the Prime Minister is failing not only on that measure but also on a number of different measures, including trade, the economy and jobs?

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would absolutely agree.

The Prime Minister has failed. The Prime Minister is quotable and quoted. It is indelible. He made it absolutely clear how he would be measured by the prices at the till. He failed. Prices are increasing by every measure and in every category across the country. For every demographic and for every person in remote communities and in urban centres, life has continued to get worse. There is no projection that it is going to get better. By any reasonable measure, the Prime Minister has failed on that commitment miserably.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in this afternoon's debate.

Today is an opposition day, and I am always pleased to have the opportunity to discuss issues with my Conservative colleagues and address some of the points in their motion. Today's opposition motion focuses on food and the cost of living, which includes the issue of agriculture.

Kings—Hants has a very rich agricultural heritage. I believe the Speaker's riding of Perth—Wellington has the largest number of supply-managed farms in Ontario. Something similar can be said of my riding, because it has the highest concentration of supply-managed farms east of Quebec.

The vegetable sector is also very important. We produce a lot of apples, potatoes and wine, among other things. I am very proud of our farmers, everyone who grows and produces things across the country. I know that the other members of the House of Commons feel the same way.

The question of agriculture is an important piece for us to talk about. I had the opportunity to be in the House debating an opposition day motion on Monday. I reminded Canadians at home and parliamentarians that, notwithstanding that sometimes we will hear questions from the Conservatives about food, agriculture and farmers, we saw very little in the Conservative platform in April 2025 related to farmers.

When the member for Battle River—Crowfoot was up on his feet, I looked through the Conservative platform. There were four mentions of farmers, but nothing concrete about what the Conservative Party would actually do for farmers in that platform. We hear a lot of bluster in the House and a lot of conversations, but not a whole lot on public policy that matters.

I would objectively say that the Liberal Party of Canada, in the last election, had a more comprehensive program about what the elected Liberal government was going to do for agriculture. We see some of that work bearing fruit. We see some of the work that we are doing to help support farmers. There is an opportunity to talk about that here today. There have been a lot of conversations about support for social programs and food banks, but let us talk about farmers, what we are doing and, frankly, what I would like to see a little more of from the Conservatives.

When Conservatives have the opportunity to engage in questions after debate, I would like for them to point out to me more than one vague reference to a capital gains piece. This government removed the capital gains inclusion that the last government had. This government removed it.

What else was there for agriculture? There was nothing about CFIA or PMRA. There was nothing about the regulatory reform that is needed to drive the industry forward. There was no mention of additional funding to support international trade missions.

The Minister of International Trade has been deeply focused on this question. He and I had the opportunity to engage with the Canadian Federation of Agriculture this week about the work the Minister of International Trade is doing and the agricultural lens that is on it. We want to talk about bringing down food prices in this country. It is a dynamic question that requires a thoughtful response about what we are doing at the farm-gate level, and we are not seeing that from the Conservative opposition. We do not see it in the text of today's motion. There are a few passing glances, but nothing concrete about what Conservatives would do for farmers in this country. That is extremely important.

I know with the Speaker's leadership, and maybe some leadership from others on the opposition benches, that can be raised with the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot now that he represents a riding that is inherently more agriculturally based than Carleton.

We also need to talk about the clean fuel regulations. These regulations give big companies various options for reducing their greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions. There are many opportunities and ways to fulfill this obligation, which is important in the context of climate change.

It is also important for rural prosperity. Here is an example. For western Canadian farmers who produce canola and other products, access to the Chinese market and other international markets is certainly very important. Again, the government is focused on these issues, but domestic policies for the biofuel sector are also crucial.

I asked that question, and the Conservatives have not been able to square this circle. They suggest that farmers do not care about these policies; I would argue the opposite. When I have been in Saskatchewan and Alberta, in prairie provinces, farmers understand that the policies we put in place drive an important price signal for the cost of their product.

I hope the Conservatives are going to give some thoughtful reflections about why they are against a policy that reduces emissions, drives clean fuel and supports rural prosperity across this country, including in rural areas of western Canada, at a time when those farmers could really use additional price signals and policies that matter in this country. Conservatives are against those.

I asked the member for Winnipeg North this week where Conservatives had any policy that matched economic prosperity, regional prosperity, with the reduction of emissions. I have not heard of any in six years.

The government is walking the careful line between driving economic prosperity and being mindful of the emission reduction goals we have as a government. Even on the things that actually support their backyards and their communities, the Conservatives have nothing to say. On the policy we put in place that would help improve home energy efficiency, the Conservatives were against it. These are things that improve the affordability of energy costs across this country and reduce emissions at the same time. It is a great double win, but no, Conservatives are against it.

I ask my hon. colleagues who sit on the opposition benches, and there are good ideas all across the House, for an example of where they are pairing those two important priorities to be able to make a difference. At a time when we want to talk about price point and support for farmers that would ultimately lead all the way through to the grocery level, we need to be supporting our farmers. These are the policies that do both, and we need to be thoughtful about them.

Our government has also introduced a grocery code of conduct. These are things I think there is support for across the House. There is no mention today about what those look like.

No discussion of affordability in Canada would be complete without also discussing the national child care program. I think it is worth taking a moment to examine the different approaches that the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party and the other parties take to national social programs.

The Conservatives oppose social programs like the pharmacare program, the national child care program and, of course, the national school food program. The Conservatives oppose all of these measures.

In fact, my hon. colleague from Battle River—Crowfoot said in the last Parliament that the national school food program had not yet delivered a single meal. I have good news for the Leader of the Opposition: This program plays now a crucial role across the country in improving access to healthy food, and it is delivering healthy meals to students in Nova Scotia and across the country.

Conservatives are against those things. How can they talk about the price of food and affordability but be against the programs that are being delivered, such as the national school food program, which is helping support Canadian produce and farmers and driving local outcomes at schools?

I really think we need to have a deeper conversation about the fact that the Conservatives had nothing to say about farmers in their last platform, and this is their official position. If it has changed, please, someone let me know. On the programs that matter for affordability in this country, we need to have a further conversation.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity this past summer to visit Nova Scotia, and it is a beautiful province. I was in Acadie—Annapolis, where I met with a group that assists seniors. One of the stories I heard was very troubling to me, because this particular senior had to choose between heating her home and buying food. She could not afford both. Let us be honest. There has been a 68% increase in people accessing food banks in Nova Scotia, with 169,000 people doing so in the first half of 2024.

How does the member explain to this senior, who cannot afford to pay all her bills, that she needs to choose whether she stays warm in the winter to survive or eat?