Debates of Sept. 25th, 2025

Opposition Motion—Food Taxation

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise today to speak to this opposition motion, but I cannot help but think it is just the same old Conservatives we have been seeing for years in this place. I am actually quite surprised they have not caught on to the fact that the tricks and misinformation they had been laying before Canadians for the last four years, in an effort to somehow try to clench power, has been unsuccessful for them. It did not work, yet here they are using the exact same tactics and thinking that Canadians are going to buy into their extremely disingenuous information.

Every Conservative wants to somehow blame the cost of rising food prices on the government and the actions of the government, but most Canadians realize that, when we trade in a global environment, prices are affected by global situations and global events. I will give a perfect example. In 2021, Ukraine was exporting roughly 87 million metric tons of wheat. Now it is exporting about 21 million tons, which is about a quarter of what it used to export.

When we consider that Ukraine was looked at as the breadbasket of the world and a major supplier of wheat, what did members think that would do to the price of wheat throughout the world when Ukraine had been distributing wheat throughout the world? Did they not think it would impact inflation? Conservatives want us to believe that it has nothing to do with it, that it is somehow only because of choices made by the government.

What flabbergasts me even more is the fact that I witnessed this for years before the last election. The Conservatives did the same thing. They deployed the same tactics and used the same false arguments, and then they lost an election on it. They promised that, if we eliminated the carbon tax, inflation would go down. I also heard a member say earlier today that inflation did go down when the carbon tax was eliminated in April. This is not true.

If we look over the last year and a half, inflation had been at, below or around the Bank of Canada benchmark for a solid eight to 10 months prior to the carbon tax being eliminated. Even the false logic the Conservatives are trying to use today in the House is extremely misleading and untrue, yet they continue to do it.

I am really concerned about some of the things I heard in the House today. I heard Conservatives asking questions, and then heckling during responses, about the national school food program. I heard someone heckle that it was a band-aid solution.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pretty sure the member is heckling me again right now. It is not a band-aid solution. National school food programs have been in all G7 countries except Canada for decades.

In Kingston alone, Andy Mills, who runs the Food Sharing Project in Kingston, has been facilitating some form of school food sharing through donations and volunteers since the eighties.

Governments have been calling for this for years, because the reality is that there are different socio-economic circumstances for different children, and they should not interfere with their ability to have proper nutritious food in the morning before they start to learn in school. To try to conflate such a meaningful program for so many young children in Canada with a band-aid solution for tackling an inflation problem is disingenuous at best and completely misleading at worst.

I am also concerned about some of the things I heard from the Leader of the Opposition. He was talking earlier about the Bank of Canada, and I find his comment really interesting, because when we are in the House, we are expected not to mislead. We are expected to give factual information to the best of our abilities. Sometimes that can be based on opinion and sometimes it can be based on information we get from one place that is argued by somebody else.

Moments ago, the Leader of the Opposition had this is say. I want to quote him, so I went to his YouTube channel to replay the video, where he was on YouTube Live while he was speaking. He said, “Already, the Bank of Canada is signalling that it is again doing away with its main mandate, which is to fight inflation. They have taken that mandate off the main web page, where they used to describe their mission as low and stable inflation, and they have replaced it with a grand pronouncement that they are not just any bank, they are ‘the Central Bank’.” Members will remember that he used some language there and he got a good little cheer from the swath of Conservatives who were sitting in the perfect camera shot behind him. They all cheered for it.

However, if we actually go to the Bank of Canada website, right on the main page, and this is not in bullet point form or somewhere random, buried in a policy document, there is an infographic on the main landing page of the Bank of Canada. It says, “What does the Bank of Canada do? Our primary responsibility is to preserve the value of your money by keeping inflation low, stable and predictable.” The Leader of the Opposition came in here and just spoke about something that was completely untrue.

I made a bit of a joke during that exchange, saying “I didn't even know they had a website.” He laughed and got his cohort behind him to chuckle along as he said “the whip...is saying he did not know the Bank of Canada had a website”, and that maybe I should do some research. The only thing worse than not knowing the Bank of Canada even has a website is knowing they have it and not being able to properly read it when quoting it. That is exactly what he did.

I asked him a question. I just wanted to know if his senior policy adviser, Jenni Byrne, still did paid lobbying for Loblaws. It was a simple question. The Leader of the Opposition stood up and said “of course she does not”, as though it was impossible for me to even think that could possibly be true and to ask that question. She was registered as a lobbyist on the Ontario lobbyists registry as late as early 2024.

It is very fair, when the Leader of the Opposition brings into the House the topic of discussion of the cost of food, inflation and the challenges that Canadians have buying groceries for me to ask if his campaign manager and senior policy adviser is still a lobbyist for Loblaws, helping to lobby government to reduce regulation so that it could make greater profits. He comes in here and acts as though he is the all holy individual who could properly represent and speak on behalf of the Canadian people, meanwhile his campaign manager is a lobbyist for Loblaws.

I will go back to how I started this speech, which is that Conservatives are up to the same tactics they have been up to since I came here in 2015. One would think that after having leader after leader, Conservatives would finally realize that maybe they have to try something new. I even thought that maybe after losing his own riding in Carleton, and having to go to find the safest Conservative riding in the country to run in to fight his way back to that seat, that maybe he had learned something along the way and would have a different approach.

There is nothing. It is the exact same. The only difference now is that he is the member for Battle River—Crowfoot instead of Carleton, but it is same Leader of the Opposition playing the same tricks and, unfortunately, bringing the same misinformation into the House.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know that members on the opposite side of the House think that if they yell and are really super angry about a bunch of things, maybe we will get intimidated or stop sharing facts.

The facts are that food insecurity is up, and 25% of families are struggling. They do not know where their next meal is coming from. Food insecurity has gone up 128% in the last 10 years the Liberals have been in power. This means that families are struggling to put food on the table, and the solution from the government is to build more bureaucracy rather than bring down food prices so that families could have the autonomy of being able to put healthy, nutritious food on their family table.

I fail to understand how members from the Liberal benches could somehow think that Ottawa feeding families is better than a family being able to put food on their own table.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am definitely passionate. This is why we speak through the Speaker. I am certainly not trying to bully anybody. I am speaking with the passion I have for this place and this particular issue.

For the member to say that I am misleading is completely false. Where the Conservatives and the member are misleading is in the characterization that somehow the problem we have here is uniquely and solely the responsibility of this government. It is not. By the way, Canadians agree and realize it is not. They realize there are external factors. That is why we are still sitting on this side of the House, and why despite all of her work doing the same thing in the preceding Parliament, she is not.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary is talking about solutions to a crisis. Today's motion is talking about the rising cost of groceries.

As I said earlier, there is not just one solution to such a complex issue, certainly not a simplistic solution like the one the Conservatives are proposing. Earlier, the Liberals said that there was already a code of conduct that grocers and major grocery chains had agreed to comply with, but consumers have not seen a difference in the price of groceries.

However, perhaps it would be possible to look at the purchasing power of people feeling the pain of inflation. The government has not yet increased old age security for seniors between the ages of 65 and 74 years. The pension increase was limited to those aged 75 and older. We could also consider increasing the GST credit on an exceptional basis when inflation rises in a given quarter.

Is the government considering such solutions, namely to increase people's purchasing power while simultaneously trying to control the price of groceries?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for starters, I would like to thank the member for offering some solutions. He talked about cutting the GST in certain circumstances. I am not entirely opposed to that. I would love to hear more of his thoughts on that.

I know a sticking point of the Bloc Québécois for years now has been the increase to the OAS for seniors over 75 versus between 65 and 75. We are a data-driven party. We look at the data; we make decisions, and the data showed that seniors over the age of 75 had a more precarious financial status and therefore needed larger supports. It made more sense to make sure that seniors over 75 were getting more, because the data shows that they are, as a whole, struggling more than seniors between 65 and 75. That is not to say there are not challenges among all demographics and all ages.

I appreciate him bringing forward ideas. I would like to hear more ideas, rather than just slogans.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands outlined external factors that he said contribute to the high cost of food in Canada. Can the member outline what Canadian factors have contributed to the high cost of food in Canada? Is the Government of Canada to blame for anything?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I love how the member phrased that preamble. He said that I said there are external factors. It is not me saying there are external factors; it is economists throughout the world, not just Canadian ones but those everywhere.

I will say back to the member what I said earlier. When Ukraine starts producing a quarter of the wheat it produced before the war, how does he not think that will impact inflation related to wheat and any product that comes from wheat?

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time.

It is an absolutely honour to once again rise in the people's House to address the important opposition motion we put forward today for consideration. It is clear that Canada is in the midst of a crisis. Canadians are struggling to afford food, and the cost of living is quickly rising. Many Canadians are finding it harder and harder to meet their everyday bills and obligations, let alone plan for their futures. Younger Canadians are increasingly despairing about their future prospects of ever owning a home, and many are even struggling to afford to pay rent.

On top of this, what we have is a continual soaring of the price of groceries, which affects every household in Canada and every age bracket. In my region in particular, it does not matter which age bracket. We are seeing a massive increase in and strain on the budgets of our seniors. They are having a harder and harder time making ends meet on fixed incomes while their costs for things like heat and groceries continue to soar. When it comes to individual grocery items, grapes are up 24%. The cost of canned soup is up 26%. The cost of sugar is up 20%. The cost of potatoes is up 16%. I do not know about other members, but coffee is pretty essential to my household, and it is up 22%. I think that is a crisis in and of itself for those who partake in coffee.

Let us set the scene a little further. There are even more food inflation considerations we have to put into the mix. Food inflation is 70% above the Bank of Canada's target. Food prices are up 40%. Food bank usage is also up 142% across the country. We are dealing with devastating facts and realities relating to food inflation in the country.

The government needs to take action and it must take action quickly. We have had lots of happy talk, lots of meetings, lots of photo ops and lots of chances to discuss and think about this. We have put it under active study and review and reported back to the overarching committee that reports back to the supreme committee that gets back to the House, which gets back to the minister, who eventually gets back to us. Someday, maybe, they will consider taking some kind of action so they can have another photo op to talk about what they have been talking about for months.

Canadians are demanding real action and tangible results. They want a government that will do what it says it is going to do. It was the Prime Minister who said that Canadians will judge him by the price of their groceries. They will be able to render their verdict on that.

When we look at the prices of groceries in the six months since he has been Prime Minister, they have done nothing but continue to soar and go up. Canadians are struggling as a whole right now, as 61% of Canadians lack confidence in their ability to afford groceries six months from now. This is staggering, and 70% to 80% of young Canadians worry regularly about covering the costs of essentials. Food Banks Canada found that 40% of Canadians thought they were financially worse off compared to the previous year. These are devastating findings from reputable sources, and it is time for the government to take action to remediate and address those concerns.

There is a common denominator throughout this crisis. It is a denominator that has been there for over 10 years now. We are talking about a decade's worth of common denominators. It is the current and previous government.

The Prime Minister stated that Canadians would judge him by the cost of groceries, and what we know is that they have. They are continuing to look at it, and they realize that he is not taking action despite the great promises. What are the reasons for us to call upon the Prime Minister to address this right away? What are some of the things we should make sure get done in order for these problems to be addressed?

First, here are some of the big ones. Let us go to the source: those who grow our food. What are the farmers across the country asking for this government to do? What are those who grow our food telling us we need to do to address this problem? They would like to see the industrial carbon tax removed from fertilizer and farm equipment. That would certainly help. They want the government to deal with inflation, because as everyone who follows it knows, inflation is the most harmful tax of all. It eats more and more of people's paycheques and incomes than any other tax right now when we consider its overall effects, especially as it pertains to groceries.

Farmers want us to address the clean fuel standard tax. That has been added on. It is basically a second version of the carbon tax, which the Liberals said they would remove. They took the carbon tax off, supposedly, in one name, but it has come back as the clean fuel tax, which only augments further the cost of anything that is trucked, shipped, hauled and exported.

Then there is the food packaging tax, the attack on plastic. To everything that gets packaged and everything that gets put in a bag and shipped, that tax is applied. It affects the cost of goods, and it is putting our farmers and producers at a severe disadvantage as far as competitiveness goes with neighbouring jurisdictions and other jurisdictions around the world. It is hard for these farmers and growers to keep pace with the rest of the developed world and compete economically when their input costs continue to soar.

We have heard producers ask repeatedly, and I hear it back home in my area, when the government is going to get off their backs, get out of their way and let them do what they can to help Canada get through the challenges we are facing right now and help Canadians. It is hard to help others when the burden of taxation continues to be put on their backs layer upon layer, with further regulation upon regulation. There are all these hurdles to overcome, and that is let alone competing in international markets. It is time we addressed these things.

Since March 2025, food inflation has risen 1.5%. Food prices have risen 48% faster here than in the United States. Canadians make over two million food bank visits per month, which is a 90% increase since 2019. These are staggering statistics, yet we are whistling, humming, taking photo ops and talking happy talk about how we are going to be the greatest and strongest economy in the G7. The average Canadian is looking back and saying that feels like a fairy tale to them. That is a long way from reality in their households. They are just trying to figure out if they can afford a certain grocery item this week or if they are going to have to stop a subscription in order to continue purchasing the basic needs for their households.

We have big challenges, and I wanted to talk for a brief moment, as I come to close, about the impacts on rural Canada. I am a rural Canadian. I live in rural New Brunswick, and I represent a rural riding that is filled with small towns and rural communities. The government's approach to various regulations, taxation and policies has had a discriminatory impact on rural Canadians, whether it is the EV mandates that eliminate their ability to choose for themselves and their households the vehicle they want to drive that best meets their needs and their budgets, the anti-firearms legislation the Liberals continue to bring in year after year that goes after their way of life and traditions, or even the attack on farmers and those in the natural resources sector, who see their input costs continuing to go up year after year because of taxation.

Why does the government not get onside with us, support our opposition motion, bring some relief to this sector, which so desperately needs it, and help bring down the price of food across this country?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the member to comment on two points. The government does understand and appreciate what is taking place in terms of the affordability issue. I have provided ample comment in regard to that, and we are taking actions to support Canadians and put more disposable income in the pockets of Canadians.

Having said that, I am wondering if the member would acknowledge that in the month of July, food inflation was at 0%. The Bank of Canada, just last week, reduced the interest rate, and that is a fairly positive signal to Canadians meaning that we are hitting our inflation targets.

Could the member provide his thoughts on those two issues?

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I respect my hon. colleague, but I want to say that it is, again, extremely misleading to the House. There is no way possible a government can double its deficits and continue to spend at the rate it is spending and expect inflation to go down. Inflation is continuing to go up, especially as we look at competitive and comparable nations across various jurisdictions.

We talk to the folks back home in New Brunswick and the folks across Canada, especially in rural Canada, about the cost of living. They do not at all feel like their cost of living has suddenly dropped since the election. They are feeling it more than ever, and it is time we addressed it.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Before I go to the next member, I would like to tell members to be careful when referring to “misleading” in the House. The adjectives and adverbs used before can get a member in deep trouble, so I am just cautioning the member.

The member for Drummond.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my Conservative colleague on his speech and I applaud his passion. He is clearly very committed. I can tell that this really matters to him and gets him fired up.

The cost of food is a major problem, but I do not think the solution is as simple as what the Conservatives are proposing. It is much bigger than that.

Does my colleague agree that we need to do more to support and ease the burden on the agricultural sector, much more than slogans and axing taxes? Experts say those taxes have a negligible impact on the actual cost of food.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, one thing that is abundantly clear is that, in all the considerations of the current government, rural Canada is left out. Our agricultural and natural resource sectors are not top-of-mind considerations. What needs to happen is a reprioritization so the perspective of the people who are most affected by the government's policies and have been harmed by them the most, including our agricultural producers, farmers, fish harvesters and energy and natural resource workers, is heard and heeded in the House.

Rural Canada was the key to building this country, and it will be rural Canadians who will be key to its comeback, so their perspective needs to be weighed in on this. The more it is considered, the better we are all going to be and the better their prosperity will be. It is time for rural Canada to be heard.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon South, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I seconded the motion here today. All we are saying is that when the Prime Minister came in, he said to judge him by food costs. That is why the motion is what it is.

I had the opportunity all summer to go to various food outlets in my city, Saskatoon. All one has to do is sit around the meat freezer. People come, and they have sticker shock. Families cannot afford to eat, and they are making choices, not good ones, at the grocery store. I can say that because I have hung around them in my city. I want the hon. member from New Brunswick to talk about that. Families are now making some drastic decisions at the food store, because of cost, that may not be healthy for their entire family.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is so true; Canadians are facing some really tough choices. They are facing some unbelievably difficult scenarios in their own household as they make decisions pertaining to their budget, and that includes seniors and young people.

I see in my own home area of Woodstock, New Brunswick, that the local food bank's usage has doubled since the same time last year, and a worker there said that it is from all age brackets, from young to older. She said, “Richard, this is at a crisis point; we have got to have additional help.”

It is time we prioritized the plight of ordinary Canadians who are being hurt.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order, or possibly even a privilege issue.

You just made reference to the potential of saying, “misleading information” in the House, and that is what I want to make reference to. It is a very serious issue, and in doing a very quick search, I found that the Speaker made, I believe it was on October 30, 2013, an indication, and he was talking about misleading information. I am cutting through it, and so there has to be, no doubt, more information to look into on the issue. I will read the resolution of the Speaker's decision:

Considering the high threshold to prove that a Member misled the House, the Speaker concluded that there was no evidence that the Prime Minister’s [in this case] statements were deliberately misleading, that he deliberately provided incorrect information, that he believed his statements to be misleading or that he intended them to be misleading. Accordingly, he ruled that there was no prima facie question of privilege.

I raise the issue because of my deep level of respect for the Bank of Canada. All of us should respect that it is arm's-length and independent. However, earlier today, the leader of the Conservative Party stated, “Already, the Bank of Canada is signalling that it is again doing away with its main mandate, which is to fight inflation. They have taken that mandate off the main web page, where they used to describe their mission as low and stable inflation, and they have replaced it”. It continues on. Again, it is the issue of the Bank of Canada that we are talking about and the website.

I would ask for unanimous consent, or I could provide, in both English and French, the mandate letter. The mandate, as posted on the website, states, “The Bank’s monetary policy framework aims to keep inflation low, stable and predictable—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

The parliamentary secretary is now engaging in debate. He referred to a previous Speaker's ruling in years past. Is there a particular standing order or usual practice of the House to which the parliamentary secretary can draw my attention?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I could reference page 112, “Privileges and Immunities”, in Bosc and Gagnon—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I am going to interrupt the parliamentary secretary, as I believe that would be the section for a question of privilege, which requires notice to the Speaker, and I have not received such notice at this time.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in order to—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I am going to interrupt the parliamentary secretary. He cannot choose to raise a point of order and a question of privilege at the same time and combine them. He has to pick which one he is doing, at the time he rises.

The parliamentary secretary was recognized on a point of order, then clearly said that it was maybe a question of privilege and was trying to explain, referring to a previous Speaker's ruling, which is why I let the parliamentary secretary continue. I have not heard what the point of order is at this time.

With that being said, Standing Order 10 says that if I make a ruling from the chair, there is no further debate on the matter. I would invite the parliamentary secretary to look at it. I would also invite the member, if he wishes, to rise at a later point on either a point of order or a question of privilege, and I will leave that to the member to decide.

We will resume debate.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Order.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Côte-du-Sud-Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata.