Parliamentary Speeches

Mr. Speaker, he did not have Canadians' backs. He went behind their backs so he could give $54 million for the disastrous ArriveCAN app, which we did not need. It did not work, and developers could have designed it in a single weekend. The Prime Minister went behind Canadians' backs to give out half a billion dollars to the WE Charity organization. He went behind Canadians' backs to give out CERB cheques to prisoners and public servants who were actually on the payroll at the time. These monstrous deficits would not be quite so bad if he had not wasted so much money. Why did the Prime Minister waste so much and leave Canadians with so little?

Madam Speaker, yesterday, we heard a recording of a phone call that shows the commissioner of the RCMP was under political pressure, not only from the Minister of Emergency Preparedness, but also from the Prime Minister himself, with respect to the investigation into the largest mass shooting in Canadian history, which resulted in the death of 22 people. It also contradicts statements made here in the House of Commons by the Minister for Emergency Preparedness. Will he resign?

Madam Speaker, the Minister of Emergency Preparedness said, “At no point did our government pressure or interfere with the operational decisions of the RCMP, including their communications strategy.” However, only 10 days after the biggest mass shooting in Canadian history, the commissioner of the RCMP was recorded saying, “it was a request that I got...from the Minister’s office.” Furthermore, she said that she was waiting for a call from the Prime Minister so that she could apologize for not having released the information that the politicians wanted out. They wanted this information out so that they could advance their partisan agenda. Will they resign?

Madam Speaker, yet a recording from the commissioner of the RCMP shows that this is exactly what they did. She said, “it was a request that I got um, from the Minister’s office. And I shared with the Minister that um, that it in fact it was going to be in the uh, in the news release and it wasn’t.” She continued, “I already have a request sitting in my phone that the minister wants to speak with me”. She says further, “I'm waiting for the Prime Minister to call me so I can apologize”, apologize for not releasing sensitive investigative information to advance the Liberal Party's partisan agenda. With this revelation of falsehoods stated by the minister in the House, will he resign?

Madam Speaker, that contradicts another quote in a recorded conversation, so she, too, has stated one thing here and the opposite there. Similarly, with the $54-million ArriveCAN scandal, we see the government saying things that contradict the facts. They released a document to the House of Commons saying that ThinkOn Inc. had received a $1.2-million contract for experimentation on mobile QR scanning, yet the CEO said yesterday that he never received any money and, in fact, they do not even work in the field. If his company did not get the money, who did?

Madam Speaker, it was extremely effective at making somebody rich. We just do not yet know who. The government released a document to the House of Commons saying that ThinkOn Inc. got $1.2 million in ArriveCAN contracts. Yesterday, the CEO said, “We have received no money from the CBSA.” He further said, “We’re not even remotely in that space.” In other words, they do not even do the work that was paid for. This company did not get the $1.2 million. I have two questions. Who got the money, and where is it now?

moved: That, given that, (i) one-tenth of Canadians heat their homes during Canada's cold winter months with heating oil or propane heat because there are no alternatives, (ii) Canada is the only G7 country to have raised fuel taxes during this period of record high global fuel prices, (iii) energy analysts have predicted that Canadians could see their home heating bills rise by 50 to 100 percent on average this winter, (iv) the Liberal Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador wrote to the federal Liberal government on September 2, 2022, asking for a carbon tax exemption on home heating fuels and stated: "A year ago today, the maximum price of furnace oil in the Province was 97.91 cents per litre. Today's price is 155.70, which is an increase of nearly 60 per cent. Your proposed federal carbon tax increase on furnace oil would result in an additional 17.38 cents plus HST. Added to today's price, [the carbon tax] would result in a total cost increase of 80 per cent compared to one year ago", punishing rural people in Newfoundland and Labrador forced to heat with furnace oil, the House express its agreement with the comments of the Liberal Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, and call on the government to exempt all forms of home heating fuel from the carbon tax for all Canadians. Mr. Speaker, the cost of living is rising because of the cost of government. The $500-billion inflationary deficit is increasing the cost of the goods we buy and the interest we pay. Inflationary taxes further increase the cost to produce those goods and services. The more the government spends, the more things cost. It is just inflation, as my hon. colleague, the member for Calgary Forest Lawn, will explain because I will be sharing my time with him. The Liberals will say that they had no choice but to add these enormous deficits. However, I will remind them that they had added $100 billion to our national debt even before COVID-19. That is four times more than the Prime Minister had promised. He had already set out a plan for deficits over 30 years, after saying it would only be three years. Even before the Russians invaded Ukraine, the Prime Minister had already added $500 billion to the deficit, and the inflation rate was over 5%. He cannot simply blame the external effects of the current crises, especially since I had warned the government that there would be inflation and, as a result, interest rate hikes. However, the Liberals continued to spend, tax and fuel the crisis we are facing today. Clearly, much of the money has been wasted. The Liberals spent billions of dollars to send benefits to inmates, employed public servants and people who could have been working because there were a million jobs available. The government was paying people to stay home. It did all of that. I would add that, during COVID-19, that is to say, in the past two years, the Liberals added $200 billion in non-COVID-related debt. That means unnecessary expenditures that the government did not have to incur. That was a choice they made. I had warned them that that would lead to inflation, but they said no, that was not a problem, the Bank of Canada would simply print more money. Now we can see the effects, the same effects we have seen over and over throughout history. Too much money spent on too few products makes prices go up. That has been true for thousands of years. History does not change. Every time a king, queen, emperor, president, prime minister or anyone at all prints money to pay their bills, the result is always the same: inflation. After inflation come rising interest rates, which is what we are seeing today. Suddenly, the government is surprised by the consequences of its decisions. No one forced the Prime Minister to add $100 billion to the national debt before COVID-19 and $500 billion to the national debt before the war in Ukraine. No one forced the Prime Minister to curb the production of affordable energy here in Canada. The Liberals did that. These were decisions made here in Canada and not imposed by external forces. Now we are in the middle of an inflationary crisis. The cost of food has gone up 11%, and we are now seeing a crisis in energy costs. The government likes to blame the entire world for inflation in Canada, but it is interesting to see that the products with the fastest-rising prices are those we can produce here in Canada, namely food, gasoline and natural gas. We have an abundant supply of these products here in Canada. The price increases on these products would have helped our economy if the government had not prevented our farmers from producing more food and our energy workers from producing more energy. Instead of printing more money, we could have produced more of what money buys, like more food and more energy, and we could have built more houses. We need to get rid of the gatekeepers. That is another word we should find a good French word for, but, since we are going to get rid of the gatekeepers when the Conservatives come to power, we will not even need the English word. We will no longer have gatekeepers, who prevent us from building affordable housing units, block our energy production and make it difficult for our farmers to feed us. The policies of mayors on the far left, New Democrats and Liberals, are preventing us from building houses. As a result, it takes far longer to get a construction permit here in Canada than in any other OECD country except Slovakia. Here, getting any kind of construction permit takes an average of 250 days. In North Korea, you can get a permit in 28 days. What has this meant? It has meant higher costs to produce energy, higher costs for our farmers and higher costs for home building. More money chasing fewer goods always means higher prices, so instead of creating cash, we need to create more of what cash buys. Now, though, in the time when energy prices are rising, the last thing we need is a new tax increase on our people. Look at what is happening in Newfoundland. The Newfoundland premier, and he is a Liberal, said that a year ago today, the maximum price of furnace oil in the province was 97¢ per litre. Today it is a buck fifty-five, which is an increase of nearly 60%. The proposed federal carbon tax increase would mean an extra 17¢, plus HST. He also said, “Added to today's price, [the carbon tax] would result in a total cost increase of 80 per cent compared to one year ago.” That is from a Liberal premier. Similar problems are raging right across Atlantic Canada, where 40% of people are living in energy poverty. This is in Canada, a G7 energy-producing country. That is the result of seven years of the Liberal government. Similar crises are emerging across the country. One energy analyst said that Canadians can expect price increases on their home heating of 100%, all to pay for a plan to triple the carbon tax on Canadians. By the way, the carbon tax has not worked to reduce emissions. The government has failed to hit a single solitary climate target with its tax so far. Yesterday, the Prime Minister was saying that he knows he has not hit any of his promises, but he promises to hit them in the future and this time he promises not to break that promise. I can tell members one thing. I am not prepared to gamble on that. I am not prepared to watch Canadian seniors living in rural Newfoundland and Labrador or Nova Scotia, who are forced to heat with oil and propane, pay a 100% increase in their home heating bill because the Prime Minister is promising not to break his promise, a promise he has broken every time he has ever made it before. That is not a bet I am prepared to make. Therefore, I am calling on the government to allow its members from these rural communities to vote with us on this motion, to put aside the centralized control of the tax-hungry Prime Minister and vote with us in favour of this motion. If they cannot be disabused of their ideological obsession with taxing Canadians to punish them with the carbon tax, at the very least will they, in the spirit of non-partisanship and compromise, take the tax off of home heating as winter is coming? The cold will soon be upon us, and Canadians will soon be forced into the decision between heating and eating. Will they at least have the compassion to side with this common sense coalition? Will they break off from their costly coalition with the NDP, stop punishing Canadians and finally end the high-carbon hypocrisy, which sees a Prime Minister jetting around the country in a private aircraft, including flying down to Costa Rica for a sunny vacation right in the middle of the summer? When the winter is upon us, when people are not even worried about being on beaches, let us not tax them. Let us allow them to heat their homes here in our country.

Madam Speaker, of course the question is based on a totally false premise, but worse than that, it is based on the worst of Liberal elitist snobbery. For them to look down on the little old lady in rural Newfoundland or rural Nova Scotia because she is heating her home in February and call her a polluter, while the Prime Minister has forced that same little old lady to pay, through her taxes, for him to get on a gas-guzzling private jet, fly around the country for photo ops, burn more fuel in a single month than 20 Canadians burn all year, and go to Costa Rica on that same jet, is the worst high-carbon hypocrisy. It is an insult to Canadians.

Madam Speaker, first, I find it funny that the Bloc Québécois, which is supposed to be separatist, is now in favour of a federal government that is imposing a triple tax on the provinces. It is true. Every day, the Bloc Québécois stands in the House of Commons to ask for a stronger federal government. We are the ones who want to give Quebeckers the opportunity to be masters of their own house. Second, the hon. member says that climate change is important. Yes, that is true, and that is why we need to put an end to policies that are not really working. It is not by increasing the cost of traditional energies that we will fight climate change, it is by reducing the cost of alternative energies. That is what we will do by encouraging hydroelectricity, nuclear power and the production of electric batteries here in Canada.

Madam Speaker, if the NDP member is so unhappy with the way things are going in Canada, why is he supporting the Liberal government that is making it so? He and his costly coalition have supported the government greed that has hoovered up the money that Canadians worked so hard to earn. That costly coalition has caused today's inflation. That costly coalition will make it worse by tripling the tax. If he is not happy with how badly his people are suffering, then why does he stay part of that coalition?

Mr. Speaker, this Prime Minister added $100 billion to our national debt before COVID‑19 and $500 billion to it before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He doubled the national debt by adding more debt than all of the other Canadian prime ministers in the history of our country combined. All of that money is driving up the cost of the goods that we buy and the interest that we pay. All of a sudden, today, the Minister of Finance has done a flip-flop by recognizing that these inflationary deficits are increasing the cost of living. How can we trust the people who caused inflation to reverse it?

Mr. Speaker, what a flip-flop. After adding $100 billion of new debt before the first case of COVID, half-a-trillion dollars of debt before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, doubling the debt, adding more debt than all other prime ministers combined, now the Prime Minister's government is saying that it is going to cut $9 billion and even bring in my “pay-as-you-go” law to find savings for every new dollar of spending. However, it now admits that deficits add fuel to the inflationary fire. Can we really trust the arsonists who lit the fire to put it out?

Mr. Speaker, what would we have cut? We would have cut the $54-million ArriveCAN app. We would have cut the half-billion dollars for the WE organization. We said that they should never have given wage subsidies to wealthy corporations that were capable of paying out bonuses and dividends to their executives. That is an easy question to answer. In fact, $200 billion of the $500 billion in new debt in the last two years had nothing to do with COVID at all. Inflation was already spiralling out of control well before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Liberals should stop blaming everyone else and tell us how they are going to reverse the inflation that they caused.

Mr. Speaker, it is true that dumb governments that ran massive deficits all around the world and printed money to pay for it all have inflation problems. Countries like Switzerland that have low or no deficits have low or no inflation. This was a choice. The government decided to spend a half-trillion dollars inflating the cost of living. More dollars chasing fewer goods leads always to higher prices. Now we have 40-year highs in inflation. How can we trust the very few people who caused this problem to fix it?

Mr. Speaker, now the member blames the war in Ukraine for inflation, when less than 0.3% of Canada's trade is with Russia and Ukraine combined. Furthermore, the very things that the Russians and Ukrainians produce, oil and agriculture, are abundant here at home if only the government would get out of the way and let our farmers and energy workers produce them. If we cannot do that we have bigger problems still. It is time for the Liberals to actually take responsibility. A half-trillion dollars of inflationary deficits have made life more expensive and have been bone-crushing for our consumers. When will they reverse these inflationary policies?

Mr. Speaker, most Canadians are not eligible for that money, and those who do get it will not be able to hang on to it for very long. According to the Royal Bank, inflation is going to cost the average family here in Canada $3,000 next year. Canadians cannot afford to pay any more, but the Prime Minister is going to add to their bills. Will he cancel his plans to continue his inflationary deficits and taxes?

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are also suffering with the skyrocketing increases in the price of food. Today we learned food prices are up 11%. It is 17% for bread. Pasta is up 23%, lettuce 21% and flour 24%. The Prime Minister's solution, of course, is to raise taxes on food with a carbon tax hike that will triple the tax on the cost of transporting and producing food in the first place. Will he reverse this tax hike so that Canadians can put food on the table?

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the Prime Minister is proposing to do exactly nothing for the vast majority of struggling families, which will get nothing, and even the small minority that do get something will find it gobbled up by increased inflation. The Royal Bank says that the average family will pay $3,000 more in inflation and higher interest rates. These are the results of the half-trillion dollars of inflationary deficits that are driving up the cost of the goods we buy and the interest we pay. Now he wants to triple the tax on food. Canadians are paying enough to put food on the table. Will the Prime Minister let up and get off their backs?

Mr. Speaker, ironically, the goods that have gone up the most in price are those that we can produce right here in Canada: bread, pasta and flour. We grow wheat in this country. We should be able to deliver it to people's kitchen tables affordably, but the Prime Minister wants to raise taxes on the people who do the growing of our food and the delivering of it to our grocery stores. Even the Governor of the Bank of Canada says that “inflation in Canada increasingly reflects what’s happening in Canada.” This is homegrown Liberal inflation. Why does the Prime Minister not stop raising the prices on Canadians so they can put food on the table?

Well, Mr. Speaker, it is good to know, but no surprise, that the Prime Minister thinks that $54 million is just a petty matter. A programmer demonstrated that the ArriveCAN app could have been designed in a single weekend for less than a quarter of a million dollars. Instead, the Prime Minister paid $54 million. Ten thousand people were wrongly sent into quarantine by that app when they should not have been, and many of the contracts went to companies that have home addresses as their headquarters. Will the Prime Minister supply Canadians with a full list of all the contractors who got the money?

Mr. Speaker, creating a $54-million app, well over budget, that could have been created in a weekend for under a quarter of a million dollars does not protect anybody's safety; nor does an app that sends 10,000 people wrongly into quarantine. However, the strangest thing is that there are these roughly dozen companies that got the contracts to supply this app. The Prime Minister does not want to give all of the names of the subcontractors who got that money. I challenge him now: Will he commit to supplying this House with the list of all the subcontractors who got the money? Who got rich?

Mr. Speaker, they stepped up to put money in the pockets of their friends. We do not forget the WE Charity. Someone got rich here. Someone designed an app that did not work, that sent 10,000 people wrongly into quarantine, and that had home addresses as the headquarters of the companies that received the money. Many of the subcontractors are still secret. If the Prime Minister will not tell us the identity of those companies, then maybe the genius who spent $54 million on an app that could be designed in a weekend could please stand up now.

Mr. Speaker, the cost of government is increasing the cost of living. The wasted $500-billion money-printing inflationary deficit is driving up the cost of the goods we purchase and the interest we pay. Inflationary taxes are making it more expensive for our businesses and workers to produce these goods and services. Next year, Canadians will be paying $3,000 per family because of this inflation caused by the Prime Minister. When will he reverse his inflationary policies?

Mr. Speaker, the help for housing he is bragging about will go to almost no Canadians, and those who will get it will get, at most, 500 bucks. These days, one cannot even rent a doghouse in the backyard for that amount of money. The reality is that the Prime Minister has presided over the worst housing bubble on planet earth. UBS says that Vancouver is more overpriced than New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Los Angeles, which are all places with more people, more money and less land. Will the Prime Minister get the gatekeepers out of the way and stop printing money to inflate our housing market?

Mr. Speaker, this is the Prime Minister who is blocking people from actually getting a house. It is $2,000 to rent an apartment in Canada these days, and the average price is $1 million for a home in Toronto. Now he wants to make it more expensive to heat homes by tripling the carbon tax. Even the Liberal premier in Newfoundland and Labrador has said that rural seniors will struggle to keep the heat on. Will the Prime Minister show some mercy for those people who are struggling to heat their homes and cancel his plan to triple the tax?

Mr. Speaker, the question was about home heating. This Prime Minister wants to triple, triple, triple the tax on seniors for the crime of heating their homes in February. It is not a luxury to heat one's home in Canada in the wintertime, yet the Prime Minister wants to punish people for doing it. Forty per cent of Atlantic Canadians are living in energy poverty, yet the Prime Minister wants to hit them all with a big fat tax hike. If he is not going to back down on his plan to triple the tax, will he at least have the decency to exempt home heating this winter from that tax hike?

Mr. Speaker, first of all, the Prime Minister is imposing this carbon tax hike on all 10 provinces and three territories. Six provinces will not get any rebate at all. Even in the remaining four, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has shown that the majority of people pay more in taxes than they get back in rebates. It has all been a falsehood. Furthermore, the Liberals have not hit a single, solitary climate target since they took office. Finally, it is a little rich for the Prime Minister to call little old ladies in rural Newfoundland and Labrador polluters for heating their homes in the winter when he makes them pay for him to jet around and go to Costa Rica in the middle of the summer. Why would he not halt the high carbon hypocrisy?

Mr. Speaker, the environment minister now says that he does not like foreign oil oligarchs. Well, that is news, because I was beginning to think OPEC was going to give the Prime Minister an outstanding achievement award for all that he has done to promote foreign oil interests by blocking the 15 proposed LNG projects that existed when he came to office. He has reduced Europe to its knees and turned it to be dependent on Putin. By blocking oil production in Canada, he has prevented us from supplying ourselves and forced us to import more oil. Why will the Liberals not stop sending paycheques out and pollution up?

Mr. Speaker, here is a fact for us: 15 LNG projects were proposed when the Prime Minister took office. Zero are completed. Even the one that we approved in our final days in office, he has still failed to bring to completion. Now, after the Prime Minister stood in the way of LNG Quebec and east coast LNG projects, Europe is totally dependent on Putin to keep the heat on this coming winter, funding that war. What has the government contributed? It has sent Putin back his turbines to help him pump his gas. Why are the Liberals funding Putin's war instead of paycheques for Canadians?

Mr. Speaker, the cost of government is increasing the cost of living. The $500‑billion inflationary deficit is driving up the cost of the goods we purchase and the interest we pay. Inflationary taxes are increasing costs even more. The Royal Bank of Canada reported last week that inflation and higher interest rates will cost every Canadian family $3,000 next year. Will the costly coalition finally realize that Canadians cannot pay any more? Will it cancel its plan to raise taxes?

Mr. Speaker, the radical policies of the Prime Minister and the NDP mayor in Vancouver led that city to more violence, to be on track for a record number of overdose deaths and to be among the most overpriced housing markets on planet earth. However, voters in Vancouver have said “enough”. They have fired the NDP mayor, rejected the radical policies and instead voted to remove the gatekeepers, build more affordable homes and bring in common-sense laws to restore safe streets. Will the government in Ottawa finally get the message?

Mr. Speaker, it is true that Vancouver already has its own provincial carbon tax, but now the costly coalition of the NDP and the Prime Minister wants to force B.C. to triple that tax. We already have gas prices nearing two dollars a litre in British Columbia. People voted in the Vancouver elections to reject these inflationary policies. Why will the costly coalition not get the message from British Columbia that people cannot afford these taxes, and cancel its plan to triple the tax?

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have no plan to fight climate change. What they have is a tax plan, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer has concluded that the majority of people who receive these rebates, which is not even all Canadians, get less in rebates than they pay in taxes. For example, 40% of east coast Canadians are living in energy poverty. The Liberal Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador has said that the Liberal government in Ottawa should not triple the tax on home heating. Home heating prices are expected to double this winter. Will the government get the message that heating a home in Canada is not a luxury and cancel the plan to triple the tax?

Mr. Speaker, here we go with the trickle-down government. It scoops up the money from hard-working people who are just trying to heat their homes, doubles home heating bills, brings the money to Ottawa and then expects us to believe the money is going to trickle all the way back down to the people who paid for it in the first place. Allow us to doubt that. We already know that the vast majority of Canadians are paying far more in taxes than they are getting back in any rebates. Many provinces do not get any rebate at all, yet the government wants to target seniors for the crime of heating their homes. Why does it not cancel this crazy plan to triple the tax?

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House of Commons today to talk about food inflation, which is at its highest in 40 years. I will talk about the price increases for a few food items. The price of fish has risen by 10.4%; the price of butter, by 16.9%; the price of eggs, by 10.9%; the price of pasta, by 32%; and the price of coffee, by 14.2%. These are only a few examples of the rising prices Canadians are paying for food. The poorest Canadians are the hardest hit. It is only appropriate that we address this problem. What are the causes of food inflation? The cost of government is increasing the cost of living. The $500-billion inflationary deficit is increasing the cost of the goods we purchase and the interest we pay. Inflationary taxes are increasing production costs for our businesses and farmers, which further contributes to the increase in prices. The more the government spends, the more expensive it gets. This is the result of the costly coalition between the Liberals and the NDP. The solution is to undo the problems the Liberals have caused. First, we must limit government spending by passing a law that requires politicians to save one dollar for each new dollar spent. This law used to exist elsewhere in the past. In the 1990s, such a law enabled the U.S. government to eliminate its deficit and pay back $400 billion of its debt while creating jobs. After the law was repealed, they started to accumulate deficits once again. This shows that we must impose legal limits on politicians’ spending. Otherwise, they are undisciplined, and consumers pay the price. Second, we must eliminate inflationary taxes. This government, with the support of the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, wants to triple the carbon tax on farmers, small businesses and truckers, which will obviously drive up the cost of food. Food does not come from the store, but from farms and farmers. In addition, it is transported by truckers. Every time we increase taxes on these people, consumers pay more. Since farmers can no longer bear the costs, we are importing food from other countries that are creating far more pollution. We would be able to produce the food here, but the taxes on farmers increase costs and make it impossible to produce food in Canada. We should eliminate these taxes to encourage food production here in Canada. We have the best farmers in the world, and we should be able to feed ourselves. Third, we must eliminate the bureaucratic hurdles that prevent the production of food and other essential goods, as well as the red tape and delays that prevent the construction of housing units, energy production and, of course, food production. Instead of printing money like this government and the Bank of Canada are doing, we should be producing what money can buy: more food, more housing units and more energy, here in Canada. That means that we have to eliminate obstacles, make it easier to get a construction permit and allow people who work hard to achieve their goals. Rather than simply printing money, let us produce what we need. This policy will make life more affordable and Canada more self-sufficient. That is the goal we will be pursuing as Conservatives. I will be splitting my time with the member for Foothills, Madam Speaker. The New Democrats point out in this motion that corporations should pay what they owe. We agree with that. They say there should be increased penalties for price-fixing. We agree with that, too. They think that the agriculture committee should study high food prices and whether there is something called “greedflation”, including inviting grocery store CEOs to the committee. We agree with that, too. That is all very reasonable. Unfortunately, in some ways, it does not go far enough, because they have a very limited view of greed. They think that it only exists in the private sector. They ignore in the motion government greed. The New Democrats have this fantastical view of human nature. I would not say that it is optimistic or pessimistic; it is both at the same time. They think that human beings are angels when they work for the state, but demons when they work in the private sector, as though greed is part of human nature only in the free market. However, when these same people who work for a company then transfer over to work for a bureaucracy or as politicians, all of a sudden they are purified of all greed and transformed into an entirely different being. The reality is that human nature is what it is, warts and all, good and bad. There is greed and that greed exists in government as well. When the government expands itself vastly faster than the economy, increasing costs by $500 billion in the last two years alone, $200 billion of which had nothing to do whatsoever with COVID, and when the government, against the warnings of the Conservatives, gives corporations wage subsidies, even though they can afford to pay out dividends to their shareholders and bonuses to their executives, the government is engaging in feeding that greed. When the government printed $400 billion, causing inflation to spiral out of control to the benefit of the super-rich, who saw their assets inflate, but to the disadvantage of the poor, who then lost purchasing power and watched house prices go out of reach so they could never get out of their parents' basements or out of that 400-square-foot apartment, it was government greed that had caused that transfer of wealth from the have-nots to the have yachts. I just wish once in a while the NDP, which believes in the endless expansion of the state, would acknowledge the roll that government greed has played in plaguing the country with the highest inflation in 40 years. The cost of government is driving up the cost of living. Half a trillion dollars in new inflationary spending has bid up the cost of the goods we buy and the interest we pay. The inflationary taxes have bid up the cost for businesses and farmers to produce those goods. The more Liberals and New Democrats spend, the more things cost. That is how we got into this mess in the first place. The Liberals and the NDP, the costly coalition, want to double down on the problem by further increasing the costs on the backs of Canadians by tripling the carbon tax, which will inevitably be passed on to consumers. We cannot tax farmers, truckers and grocers without having those costs pass on to the people at the end of the grocery aisle. We know they will pay those higher prices; we know they already have. Conservatives say: enough. The time has come to cap government spending and cut government waste so we can phase out the inflationary deficits and taxes, cancel the plan to triple the carbon tax and, instead, deploy technology to make green alternative energy more affordable. Let us bring down the cost of energy, rather than bring it up. Speaking of which, let us remove the government gatekeepers who make this the 64th-ranked country in the world when it comes to getting a building permit. Sixty-three other countries give them faster. What does that mean? It means that farmers can put up their barns faster. It means that mines, which would produce lithium, cobalt, copper and other minerals for green electricity, must wait longer and, therefore, costs more money. It means that producing clean, green Canadian nuclear energy, etc., could be coming onto the market faster. Let us get these gatekeepers out of the way, speed up the production and unleash the mighty force of our free enterprise system, so instead of creating cash, we create more of what cash buys and unleash the production of a cleaner, more affordable economy for all our hard-working people.

Madam Speaker, CEOs should pay their fair share and pay what they owe, as the motion says. We believe in tax enforcement and we believe the government has done a terrible job cracking down on those who hide their money in offshore accounts and refuse to pay what they owe. The Conservatives do support that, to clearly answer the member's question. What we do not support is forcing working-class people to pay higher taxes. We do not support higher energy costs. We do not believe that consumers in Vancouver should pay more than $2.40 a litre. We do not support the plan to triple the carbon tax on home-heating oil for Newfoundlanders and to further drive the people of eastern Canada, 40% of whom are in energy poverty, into more poverty still. We believe that life should be affordable for all of them, and that is why this has not gone far enough.

Madam Speaker, we on this side reject all misogyny and all acts of extremism, and we will always stand up to that over here. I will give the House an example of why the subject of food affordability is so important, because the people who are the least advantaged in our society end up paying the most. Those with the least means, with the least resources, end up spending a larger share of their income on food. The very wealthy can spend a smaller share of income on food. That is why those people are not as affected by inflation. Two years ago, I warned that we would have an inflation crisis if the government continued with its inflationary taxes and deficits, and that is exactly where we are today. We, as Conservatives, will reverse the policies that got us here, to make the dollar go further for everybody.

Madam Speaker, neither the Bloc Québécois, nor the Liberals, nor the NDP have a plan to deal with climate change. They have a plan to increase taxes. Since the implementation of the carbon tax, the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets have never been met. It simply has not worked. The hon. member says there will be exceptions, but when? We introduced bills to exempt farmers years ago, but that never happened. We cannot trust the current government or the costly coalition to make it happen.

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to wish the Prime Minister and his family a happy Thanksgiving. However, it will not be too happy for many families, because the cost of turkey is up 16%. The cost of other food items has gone up over 20%, so one-fifth of Canadians will have to cut back on what they put on the table this Thanksgiving weekend. How much will the price of Thanksgiving dinner go up once the Prime Minister triples the carbon tax?

Mr. Speaker, in English, I would also like to wish the Prime Minister and his family a happy Thanksgiving. However, it will not be too happy for a lot of people whose costs have gone out of control. In fact, the cost of turkey is up 16%, according to one food processor. The cost of other items are up over 20%, and one fifth of Canadians will have to reduce what they put on the plate this Thanksgiving weekend. How much will the Prime Minister's tripling of the tax on our farmers, truckers and consumers increase the cost of Thanksgiving dinner for the future?

Mr. Speaker, they will not be smiling if their parents cannot afford a bit of pumpkin pie for them at Thanksgiving dinner. Look at the cost increases that have happened: a 16% increase for the cost of turkey; a 22% increase for potatoes; bread is up 13%; butter, 13%; cranberries, 12%; bacon, 10%. That all adds up to an unaffordable Thanksgiving dinner, and the Prime Minister wants to make it worse still by tripling his tax on our farmers, our truckers and ultimately our consumers. How much will that add to the cost of Thanksgiving?

Mr. Speaker, I condemn this organization, and I corrected the problem as soon as it became known to me. I condemn all forms of misogyny, including when the Prime Minister fired the very first female indigenous Attorney General. I condemn when he mistreated minority young women in his own caucus who had to leave politics. I condemn him for when he dressed up in racist costumes so many times he forgot them all. We condemn it always.

Mr. Speaker, I took responsibility and corrected it as soon as it became known to me, but the Prime Minister does not take responsibility for the extremism that he has funded. He funded a vicious anti-Semite to spread hatred online with taxpayers' dollars. He repeatedly, in fact so many times he cannot even keep track, dressed up in racist costumes, for which he has never come fully to account. He drove many women in his own caucus out of the party and out of Parliament altogether with his mistreatment of them. We condemn all of that behaviour. We condemn misogyny always and everywhere, and we ask the Prime Minister to finally do the same.

Mr. Speaker, according to Le Journal de Montréal, growing numbers of students affected by the rising cost of food are turning to food banks. A survey showed that the majority of Canadians—51%—are struggling to feed themselves. The carbon tax is a tax on food because it is a tax on farmers and the truckers who deliver our food. How much will groceries cost families when the Prime Minister implements his plan to triple the carbon tax again and again and again?

Mr. Speaker, I was at the Metcalfe Fair over the weekend and a farm family told me that they spent $12,645 on carbon taxes in July alone. Obviously, that gets passed on to customers. That is $12,645 in one month. Now the Prime Minister wants to triple the tax on that family, which they will have to pass on in even higher food prices, which have already gone up more than at any time in 40 years. How much will this family have to spend on carbon taxes when the Prime Minister triples them?

Mr. Speaker, feeding people is not a clever slogan; it is a necessity of life. This family spent $12,645 on carbon taxes in a single month, but it is still not enough for the Prime Minister. He wants to triple the tax, increasing the cost for that farmer, who then has to pass it on to the customer. It means that more of our food will be produced abroad and shipped up here, polluting more of our environment by shipping, training and trucking that food. Again, will he answer the question? How much will this family have to spend on carbon taxes once he has tripled them?

Mr. Speaker, one, his climate rebate comes nowhere near $12,645 for this farm family. Two, his carbon tax has not hit a single solitary emissions reduction target; it has not worked. Three, in the month of July, when this family was paying $12,645 in his carbon tax, supposedly for the environment, the Prime Minister jumped on his private jet 20 times. It is high-carbon hypocrisy. If he cannot tell us how much the tax will cost, will he tell us how much carbon he emitted in the month of July when he was raising taxes?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has not gotten serious on climate change. He has a tax plan, not a climate plan, that has raised money for his government but has not reduced emissions or hit targets. Now the Prime Minister has the audacity to call this farm family polluters while he jets around in his private jet across the country. The effect of his plan will be to drive up domestic food production costs and drive that production out of our country to more polluting lands where it has to be transported longer distances. Why does the Prime Minister want to drive prices and emissions up, and farm production and opportunity down?