Rhonda Kirkland

Madam Speaker, Thanksgiving should be a time for families to gather around a full dinner table, not worry about whether they can afford to put food on it, yet Thanksgiving dinner is projected to cost an extra 10% again this year. At Simcoe Hall Settlement House in Oshawa, food donations are just one-third of normal levels. After 11 years of the Liberals, will the government finally admit that Canada is officially in an affordability crisis, and explain why they voted against our Conservative plan, which would have lowered food costs while families in Oshawa struggle to put food on the table this Thanksgiving?

Madam Speaker, I would have a lot more respect for the member for Whitby if he was standing up for the auto workers in our community. The Simcoe Hall Settlement House food bank in Oshawa is now capped at 70 households a day. Demand has not fallen; it is having to turn people away, but food being donated has. Grocery costs are still rising while meals are getting smaller and smaller for families. After years of reckless Liberal deficits and tax-and-spend policies, families cannot afford a basic Thanksgiving dinner. Will the Liberals please tell us by which Thanksgiving exactly we can expect to have grocery prices stop rising, or will the Liberals admit they have no plan?

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today on behalf of my constituents in Oshawa in support of our Conservative motion, which asks the House something simple: to recognize these facts. The Liberals have been in power for 11 years and Canada is in an affordability crisis, yet in March of this year the Prime Minister stood in this very House and claimed, “Affordability is the best it has been in...a decade.” I would invite the Prime Minister to come to Oshawa and tell that to my neighbours, where Canada's affordability crisis is their everyday reality. It is the young Canadian working full time who cannot afford to move out of their parents' home, the mother putting groceries back on the shelf because she cannot afford everything in her cart, the senior choosing between rent and medication and the auto worker wondering whether their job will still be there tomorrow. When hard-working Canadians cannot afford life's basics, the Liberal government is completely disconnected from reality. A generation of Canadians are doing everything right and still cannot afford the opportunities their parents and grandparents enjoyed. After 11 years, the government must answer for that reality Remember, just last spring, the Prime Minister stood up in the House and said, “Affordability is the best it has been in...a decade.” Tell that to the food banks in Oshawa. I recently heard from Tiffany Kift at Simcoe Hall Settlement House, an extraordinary organization serving vulnerable families in Oshawa. What she shared with me was heartbreaking. Simcoe Hall is now serving more than 3,600 people every month and they have been forced to cap food bank visits to 70 households per day, not because fewer people need help but because they simply do not have the resources to help everyone who does. Every day they sadly have to turn people away. Who is walking through their doors? Seniors, young adults, parents and even families with two incomes are walking through their doors. Tiffany described a growing group of Canadians as the working poor. These are Canadians who get up every morning, work hard, earn a paycheque and still cannot afford groceries. Imagine both parents working, doing everything they can to provide for their children and still having to visit a food bank. When two incomes are no longer enough to put food on the table, the Liberal government is out of touch with the struggles of working Canadians. What Tiffany told me about children in Oshawa was even more heartbreaking. Simcoe Hall staff are sending children home with food because, for some, it may be the only food they eat that day. Feeding children dinner is not even a mandatory part of their after-school programming, but staff do it as much as they can anyway because those children need to eat. The Liberal government would promote its national school food program, yet frontline workers at Simcoe Hall report that some of Oshawa's most vulnerable children are still not consistently receiving completely nutritious meals at school or at home. When school closes for the summer, demand for food assistance grows even greater. Where do they get their lunches then? When children are going hungry while the government announces one program or another intended to feed them, there is a serious disconnect between the Liberal promises and what families are experiencing. Last spring, the Prime Minister said, “Affordability is the best it has been in...a decade.” Our seniors are also struggling. Tell them that. Recently, my office heard from Clifford, a senior in Oshawa who is living on a fixed income, of course. Clifford is struggling to pay his rent, afford his groceries and, most concerning of all, purchase the medication he needs. Tiffany tells me that Simcoe Hall has even introduced a program called Dinner for One to provide prepared meals for seniors who are struggling to feed themselves. A lifetime of hard work should not end with a trip to the food bank. When seniors cannot afford groceries or medication, the Liberal government is out of touch with the struggles that Canadians face in everyday life. While demand for food assistance continues to grow, donations are declining. Simcoe Hall's financial donations are down approximately 33% this year, while community food drives are bringing in only a third of what they would normally expect. More people need help while fewer people can afford to give it. Canadians should not have to depend on food banks or government grocery rebates simply to put dinner on the table. They should be able to afford groceries with the money they earn. I want to thank Tiffany and everyone at Simcoe Hall for their extraordinary service to Oshawa. I will remind members that the Prime Minister said affordability is the best it has been in a decade. I encourage Canadians not to believe the gaslighting coming from the Liberal government. Nowhere is the connection between jobs and affordability clearer than in Oshawa's automotive industry. For generations, our auto workers have helped build Canada's economy, but Oshawa has faced some of the highest unemployment rates among Canada's major urban centres. Whenever I meet with local auto workers and their families, I hear the same message: protect our jobs. I think about Todd, an Oshawa auto worker. Todd worked for an automotive supplier supporting GM's Oshawa assembly plant, and when job cuts were looming, he faced the possibility of leaving the city where he was born and raised and where his children and grandchildren live. When Canadian auto workers fear losing their livelihoods, they need a government focused on protecting their jobs, not simply managing the consequences of losing them. The Liberal government has spent so much attention on working to manage decline with supports and programs that are simply not working. The Prime Minister campaigned on his ability to negotiate with the United States, and auto workers were promised a trade deal by July 2025. That deadline came and went without the promised deal. There is that old saying, “underpromise and over-deliver”, but the government consistently does the opposite, making ambitious promises, creating illusions, missing deadlines and asking Canadians to keep waiting. Recently, I asked the Liberal member for Whitby about Clifford's affordability struggles. In his response to this senior's struggle, he spoke about opportunities for workers who may need to transition away from our auto plants. I found that deeply concerning on two levels. One, the question was about seniors, and two, while Oshawa auto workers are asking the government to protect their jobs, a Liberal member from the Durham region is talking about opportunities to leave those jobs behind. Is that the government's plan for Oshawa? Our auto workers are not asking the government to find them another career. They are asking the government to fight for the careers they already have. The Prime Minister campaigned on his economic credentials and his ability to deliver change, promising to move at unimaginable speeds and telling Canadians it is time to build now. Well, Canadians are entitled to ask what those promises have delivered. Where are the affordable homes for young Canadians that they can actually move into? Where are the completed projects? Where are the results families can see in their own lives? An announcement is not a completed home. A press conference is not a paycheque, and a promise does not automatically mean results. For the government, it means an illusion and more gaslighting. Just yesterday, the Prime Minister said in the House, “I just got here.” He did not just get here. He has been the Prime Minister for 19 months. We are coming close to two years now, and before becoming Prime Minister, he was advising Justin Trudeau and the Liberals for five years, yet he refuses to be held accountable. Of course, international trade disputes and global economic pressures are real, but those challenges do not erase the responsibility of successive Liberal governments for decisions made here at home. The Prime Minister cannot ask Canadians to judge him by his experience when he campaigns but disregard that experience when they question his record. I invite him to come to Oshawa and speak with Clifford, Todd, the families visiting Simcoe Hall, our small business owners and the auto workers worried about their jobs and ask them one simple question: Are they better off today than they were 10 years ago? We know the answer is no. That is the question that matters. It is not how many announcements the government has made, but whether Canadians can afford the necessities of life. Conservatives have put forward solutions to address these challenges. We believe responsible spending, lower costs and good-paying jobs are essential for restoring affordability, because Canadians deserve more than announcements and promises; they deserve results. They deserve to keep more of what they earn, afford the necessities of life and have the opportunity to build a better future for themselves and their families. That is why I will be voting, of course, in favour of our Conservative opposition day motion to recognize what Canadians across Oshawa and the country are experiencing. After 11 years of Liberal government, Canada is in an affordability crisis, and it is not the most affordable it has been over the last 10 years.

Mr. Speaker, the member knows well that when that was voted on, I was not elected as a member of the House. It is so interesting that he stands here and says that I voted against it. On this, I want to be clear. I voted against the last budget because it was inflationary and was going to make things worse. They know it. We know it. Canadians need to understand that as well. The other thing is this. When I spoke with folks at Simcoe Hall about the school lunch program, they said that it sounded good in theory, but clearly it is not working because we have children who are starving. They could not even identify one school in my area that has that program.

Mr. Speaker, this is true in Oshawa as well. Young people are having a harder and harder time finding work. They want the promise that they were promised. They want to work hard, earn an income, own a home and start a family, but 11 years of failures from the Liberal government and the Prime Minister, who for the last seven years was an adviser before he became Prime Minister 19 months ago, are resulting in Canadians and young people suffering. It is about time the Liberal government admitted it, because we all know the truth. If we want to fix a problem, the first step to doing that is admitting we have one, and I have yet to see the government do that.