moved:
That, given that the Prime Minister said Canadians would judge him by the cost at the grocery store, and that,
(i) food inflation is 70% above the Bank of Canada's target,
(ii) food prices are up 40% since the Liberals took power,
(iii) Daily Bread Food Bank expects 4 million visits to its food banks in 2025,
(iv) food bank use in Canada is up by 142% since 2015,
the House call on the Liberal Prime Minister to stop taxing food by eliminating:
(a) the industrial carbon tax on fertilizer and farm equipment;
(b) the inflation tax (money-printing deficits);
(c) carbon tax two (the so-called clean fuel standard); and
(d) the food packaging tax (plastic ban and packaging requirements).
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Middlesex—London.
It is important that we have an opportunity to rise today to speak about a very important issue that I know all of us are hearing about from our constituents: affordability and the affordability crisis, which is no more acute than with food. The Prime Minister proclaimed to Canadians, almost on his first day after the election, that Canadians should judge him by the price of food at the grocery store shelves. These were his words, his promise. Therefore, it is his failure.
They are the same old Liberals. In fact, his predecessor Justin Trudeau, in October 2023, also made a very similar proclamation. He said that he would stabilize food prices by Thanksgiving. In fact, the current finance minister said the exact same thing. He said, “I have secured initial commitments from the top five grocers to take concrete actions to stabilize food prices in Canada” and that we would see that by Thanksgiving.
None of those things happened. In fact, since that proclamation and the proclamation of the new Prime Minister, food prices are up more than 6%. In August, food inflation surpassed overall inflation by 84%. Since August, food prices are up 3.5%. It is the same old Liberals, the same old promises, the same old broken promises. It is another bait and switch by the Liberals.
Canadians have gotten exactly what they voted for. Canadians are now facing a crisis, a crisis that hits them where it hurts them the most: in their ability to feed their families. Families across Canada are being squeezed at the grocery store, in housing costs, in rent and when they try to heat and house themselves.
Just as they did in the previous Liberal government, all that the Liberals in the current Liberal government can do is give excuses, saying there is a global recession, that this is out of their control and that this is happening everywhere else around the world. That is simply not true. When the last Liberal prime minister made the same promise only a couple of years ago, at that time food inflation in Canada was rising 37% higher than it was in the United States. In fact, it is now worse. Under the new Prime Minister, food inflation in Canada is 50% higher than it is in the United States.
The Prime Minister cannot blame retaliatory tariffs for the higher costs of produce and food in Canada, because he is elbows down. He quietly removed the retaliatory tariffs during the election and then removed additional ones earlier in the summer. This international businessman who is going to get deals done with elbows up and who is going to fight for Canadians has quickly and quietly been elbows down, and in the meantime, Canadians are the ones paying the price.
When we talk about these numbers, there are very real consequences that real Canadians are feeling. We talk about food inflation and higher costs, but what this comes down to is that 61% of Canadians are feeling food insecure. That means more than half of Canadian families do not know where their next meal is coming from. They do not know if they will be able to feed their families the next day or at the next meal. As a result of that, they are making very difficult choices, not only at the grocery store shelf but when they are doing their household budgets. Households do budgets, something the Liberal government has never quite gotten around to doing. It has been more than 18 months, and still there has been no budget.