Tamara Kronis

Madam Speaker, I especially appreciate the focus that my colleague provided on small businesses. One of the things we have seen with the tariff relief is that for most of the programs, almost nothing is available to businesses under $1 million, like the coffee shop that she was discussing. I am wondering if my colleague could elaborate on that and talk about how that is playing out in her community.

Madam Speaker, my colleague seems to have lost his way in the last answer, but I am grateful for the fact that he acknowledged the collaboration that has been taking place among the parties in order to provide relief to Canadians. My colleague from Mirabel noted that the price pressures here are not short-term and yet the relief is short-term. I wonder if the member can explain why this relief is short-term and why we are not taking the longer-term actions that would bring stability to things like food costs by extending this indefinitely.

Mr. Speaker, over the summer, I spent time at local food banks, and I can tell everyone that it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet for laid-off workers, full-time employees, working families, people with disabilities, single parents, seniors and kids. I saw real poverty lining up alongside people on the cusp of it. These people know that the Liberal government is all talk and no results for them. The volunteers doing the work that government has walked away from know it too. I want to know: When is the government going to listen to Conservatives, stop spending our money on consultants and Liberal insiders, and really take care of Canadians?

Mr. Speaker, that out-of-touch thoughts and prayers answer is not going to help the man who sent me his résumé and asked if I could help him find a job, or the couple who came into my office with their bank account statements and their household budget and asked me how they are going to keep a roof over their heads. It is not going to help the woman who shouted at me from a place of extreme fear that she had eight to 10 months before she has to consider medical assistance in dying because she cannot afford to live. I join them in wanting to know when the Liberal government will truly see the people who are struggling and adopt the policies Conservatives have proposed to restore the promise of Canada.

Madam Speaker, one of the things the member said in his remarks was that the problem is not a short-term problem and that he could see the government having to extend this again depending on the circumstances. Given the value that stability has to food prices in particular, why is the government not considering our recommendation that it should be extended right now permanently for the foreseeable future?

Mr. Speaker, it has been really heartening to hear today the recognition from the Liberal benches of the degree to which the excise tax impacts affordability. One of the things, though, that we have also heard is that, especially with the way the price of diesel is going, the impact on the price of food is going to continue to be felt. It is not going to be a short-term problem, yet the government is proposing a short-term solution. Therefore, I am wondering if the member can explain why the government has chosen to put itself in a position where it has to keep renewing this, and spending time in the House on it, when it is a problem that is clearly going to be a long-term problem. They could make this a long-term solution, cancel the tax and help, particularly food producers, with affordability by providing stability in that environment.

Mr. Speaker, I was really struck by my colleague's remarks, particularly his remarks near the end of his speech about how, if it is right for Canadians now, then why would the Liberals not go the whole way and take the tax off permanently? The reason that resonated with me so much is that there is a cost to uncertainty. We are here in the House renewing this exemption, and it has been admitted today that we may be doing it again and again. With there being so much to accomplish in the House, I am wondering if my colleague would expand a bit on his remarks and talk about some of the other things we could do for Canadians if we did not have to come back to spend a day on this topic every three months.

Mr. Speaker, as I have said a few times today, it is heartening to hear my colleagues across the aisle recognize that diesel and gas prices have an impact on affordability. It is good of them to recognize that their constituents are calling for this kind of relief. I wonder why they are again resorting to short-term measures. They have acknowledged that this is a conflict that is not going away, that has an impact. They have acknowledged the need to work on the things they can control. Why stop here?

Mr. Speaker, like lasagna or moussaka, food prices are built in layers. Four cents of excise tax sits on top of a freight surcharge, which is layered on top of additional labelling requirements, new packaging restrictions and the cost of fertilizer, refrigeration, shipping, tariffs and taxes. No single cost explains the whole grocery bill, but the grocery bill comes at the end of a long conveyor belt, and every additional cost placed on that belt eventually moves toward the consumer. At a time of record food bank use, when those of us who shop animatedly compare prices with each other in disbelief, when people are skipping meals to save money, we owe it to Canadians to ask what every decision we make in this place means for the cost of food. When the Prime Minister claims, as he did in this chamber on March 25, that “Affordability is the best it has been in over a decade”, it is clear to me that he has not been to the grocery store. Food prices are now 29% higher than they were five years ago, while they rose only 9% over the previous five years. If we feel like food inflation has accelerated, that is because it has. Bill C-38 is a very short bill that would do three things. It would extend the fuel tax holiday on gasoline, avgas and diesel until January 31, 2027; it would bring back half the normal rate from February 1 to March 31; and then it would restore the full tax on April 1, 2027. I support this relief, but I think it should not be fleeting. The cycle of providing temporary relief, panicking at the expiry date and extending it for a few more months leaves too many businesses wondering what will happen next. Diesel prices are already extraordinarily volatile. Statistics Canada reported on September 17 that producer prices for diesel rose 9.6% in August alone and were 75% higher than a year ago. These are enormous movements in the price of an essential business input. Now, Ottawa cannot set the world price of oil. Parliament cannot legislate peace in the Middle East or guarantee the price of a barrel of crude next spring, but when the market is unstable, there is an even greater responsibility for government to provide stability in the things that it does control. Nowhere is that more important than in food. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada estimates that transportation accounts for seven cents of every dollar Canadians spend on domestically produced food. The comparable figure in the United States is less than five cents. This is because Canada has longer distances, a more dispersed population and a climate that requires us to move food enormous distances, particularly through the winter. Fuel prices, therefore, have a direct relationship with the cost of feeding our country. We see this in my home communities on Vancouver Island. Out here, people speak of planes, trains and automobiles, while in B.C., we also have seaplanes, helicopters and ferries to contend with. Much of our food arrives after travelling by truck, rail, ship or some combination of the three. There is always another transportation leg before it reaches a grocery store in Nanaimo, Ladysmith or Gabriola. The cost of diesel, therefore, enters our food system long before the produce truck arrives at the grocery store loading dock. Farmers use diesel to fuel their equipment during planting and harvest. Ingredients travel to processors. Packaging has to be manufactured and delivered. Warehouses consume energy. Refrigerated warehouses consume even more energy. Finished products travel to distribution centres, grocery stores, restaurants and institutions. I am chairing a national food affordability task force, and I heard about the cost of diesel at every farm, every processor and every grocer I visited this summer. High diesel costs have a cascading effect across the supply chain, and uncertainty amplifies that effect. The Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University has found that diesel and grocery prices have moved remarkably closely together over the last 30 years. That does not mean diesel alone determines the price of food, but it confirms what anyone involved in the food supply chain already knows, which is that energy and transportation costs, that is, gasoline, aviation gasoline and diesel, are deeply connected to what Canadians eventually pay at the grocery store. The Dalhousie lab has modelled what the present diesel shock could mean. If high prices persist through the winter, grocery inflation could peak between one-half and seven-tenths of a percentage point higher. A shorter-lived spike could produce an effect closer to three-tenths or four-tenths of a point. Either way, it is going to cost us. The Dalhousie analysis works the diesel and other cost shocks through contracts, inventories and the supply chain over many months and provides a solid basis for believing, as many members have said today when answering questions and in their remarks, that the government will need to extend this measure again and, very possibly, again. We spend enormous effort in this place debating grocery prices after they have risen. We need to start thinking about affordability problems before they show up at the checkout because uncertainty and volatility have a price. Businesses protect themselves against it through shorter contracts, larger contingencies, higher working capital requirements or delayed investment. Smaller businesses generally have fewer ways to hedge their exposure and less balance sheet capacity to absorb a sudden change. Dalhousie's agri-food lab has highlighted precisely that vulnerability among smaller processors and independent distributors as one of the many explanations for why we are experiencing food inflation. As well, there is a broader principle here that does not depend on agreement about the ultimate tax rate. If the policy objective is to hold this tax at zero while energy markets remain severely disrupted, then why do we not give businesses a horizon measured in years rather than in weeks or months? Our food costs would really benefit from that. A government faced with volatile markets should be trying to reduce uncertainty, not add another layer to it. The Prime Minister talks a lot about the things we can control. Well, government taxation is one of those things. Not every increase in food prices has the same cause, and government cannot control all of them, but where government itself is adding cost or uncertainty, we have an obligation and an opportunity to act. Agriculture and food businesses experience individual departmental policy decisions cumulatively. That means they pay the transportation cost, the packaging cost, the tariff, the regulatory cost, the energy cost and the tax at the same time. Each department may conclude that its individual measure may have a modest effect, but grocery costs do not stay nicely in departmental silos, and the cost of the whole is sometimes more than its parts. The final price reflects the entire supply chain and all of the policy changes along the way. Canada will always be a country in which food travels considerable distances. Diesel and avgas are critical inputs. Temporary relief can buy time. We should use that time. Four cents a litre is only one layer in the price of food, but it is a layer entirely within Parliament's control. When diesel prices are already up 75% in a year, we should be looking for layers we can take off, not deciding when to put them back on. I support the relief contained in Bill C-38. I would like us to go further, however, and provide the long-term certainty that lets businesses plan.

Mr. Speaker, I feel as though I should buy a lottery ticket. Thank you for those kind words, and thank you for the recognition that we are here today extending this relief to Canadians because Conservatives have pushed this point over and over again. It is because we continue to bring up affordability, we continue to focus on the people we serve in our communities and we continue to bring their stories to the House over and over again. I would say that it is wonderful to work together, but I would like to see you paying—

Mr. Speaker, it is very late, and I apologize for not speaking through you. I have the utmost respect for you, both as a person and as an institution. I would say to the members opposite that the best ideas never rise to the top without debate and without listening. The government pushed a lot of things through in the spring. I would urge it to take the time to listen and to allow us to do our job as the opposition, which is to provide constructive commentary that hopefully helps the government see that it could do more. In this case, that is extending the excise tax relief more permanently.

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that my colleague brought up the concept of control. One reason we want the gas tax relief extended and made permanent is so we can give businesses the chance to exercise that control themselves. We know that farmers plan around growing seasons. I have, of course, spoken to farmers who tell me over and over again that energy costs are hampering their ability to plan. Trucking companies negotiate contracts, but their margins are so slim that they are struggling to stay afloat, and certainty around the cost of fuel for the long term would make a big difference. Grocery distributors build networks, but changing buying patterns based on volatile pricing is actually messing with inventory levels and even creating extra food waste. Processors make investments that they have to pay for over years, and uncertainty is making them blink, which is stifling innovation and further impeding productivity. The government talks about wanting to control the things that we can control. Relieving the tax burden on a permanent basis would not only allow us to control the things that we need to control but would also allow businesses to plan.

Mr. Speaker, here is the thing: The Cowichan Tribe decision introduced uncertainty around how aboriginal title interacts with private property in B.C. While the Supreme Court declined an appeal in Wolastoqey, a refusal of leave is not a decision on the merits and does not create binding national precedent. This leaves Canadians with competing legal approaches on a critical legal question, all while Liberal directive 14, which discourages private property defences, remains in force and a Cowichan appeal is many months away. B.C. deserves to know now how the Liberals will provide the certainty we need. Where—

Mr. Speaker, I suppose it is useful to know that instead of reports, we are going to get consultations. Maybe we will get an answer to the next question. CPP disability applications are supposed to be decided within 120 days, 80% of the time. Last year, the Liberals managed only 49.3%, less than half. Why are disabled Canadians being left for months without income while the minister misses her own deadline?

Mr. Speaker, hate is real, and it is doing damage in communities across this country. No Canadian should be intimidated because of who they are, how they worship, what they look like, where they come from or what they believe. The question before us is not whether hate should be taken seriously. The question is whether Bill C-9 would actually make Canadians safer. The problem we hear about again and again is not the absence of words in the Criminal Code; it is the failure to act when people break the law. Communities are not safer when Parliament adds more words. They are safer when police respond quickly, when charges are laid where evidence supports them, when prosecutors have the resources to move cases forward, when repeat offenders face real consequences and when victims have confidence that the justice system is willing to protect them. The number and range of organizations that have raised alarms about Bill C-9 are stunning. It is not just one political party, it is not just one faith community and it is not just one type of advocacy group. Civil liberties organizations across the political spectrum have warned that this bill risks sweeping too broadly and chilling lawful expression and peaceful protest. A broad array of community organizations from across the political spectrum have warned that vague criminal law can be used unevenly and can fall hardest on the very communities it claims to protect. Progressive and traditional faith groups alike have warned about the removal of long-standing protections for good-faith religious expression. Legal and constitutional voices have raised serious concerns about the balance between public safety and fundamental freedoms. That breadth of opposition should give every member of the House pause, because when civil liberties groups, religious organizations, community advocates, legal experts and grassroots coalitions from so many walks of life all tell Parliament it is on the wrong track, the responsible thing to do is to listen. It is not to push ahead and dismiss those concerns as being fringe, unserious or misleading. The people raising these concerns are not defending hate. Many of them work every day, tirelessly, against hate, racism and violence. Their point, when they came to this place and to the other place to share their views on this bill, was to tell us that bad law can make hard problems worse. Their point has been that criminal law must be precise, fair and enforceable. When Parliament writes vague laws in the name of safety, it can create uncertainty and the opposite of safety for ordinary Canadians, while doing little to stop those who are already willing to break the law. That is the core weakness of Bill C-9. It tries to show strength through wording rather than through action or results, and yet it is remarkably confusing and imprecise in its wording. In that, Bill C-9 risks blurring the line between hateful conduct, which must be punished, and lawful expression, which must remain protected even when it is controversial, offensive and deeply unpopular. A mature democracy can punish violence and intimidation without giving the state a vague mandate to police belief, scripture, protest or political speech. For the communities that are counting on this bill, the Minister of Artificial Intelligence failed just last night to answer the key question they are asking: Who would the police be able to arrest when this law is passed who they cannot arrest today? How would this bill help bring order to the chaos that has taken over the streets in some communities right now? How would this bill actually stop the bullets, the fires and the death threats? Instead of providing answers and safety, the government brought forward a bill that has divided communities, alarmed civil society and created uncertainty about how far the long arm of the criminal law would reach. That is not careful work. That is not the careful work that Canadians expect from the House. It is not the careful work that is required when fundamental freedoms are at stake. Opposing the bill does not mean accepting hate. What it means is demanding a better answer. I will be the last speaker on the bill, not because members of Parliament have nothing left to say, not because the concerns of the groups that have come to the committee to meet with members of Parliament have had their concerns answered and not because the communities that are so worried that they will be affected by the bill have been heard. I will be the last speaker on the bill because the government has chosen to end the debate. I have said, many times in the House, that just because the Liberal majority can do something, it does not mean it should. Power gives a government the ability to move quickly but it does not give it wisdom. It does not turn a flawed bill into a good one. It does not turn words into results. In the coming weeks and months, Canadians will see what the bill would not do. It would not make a synagogue safer when threats are not met with enforcement. It would not make a mosque safer when police do not have the tools or resources to act quickly. It would not make a church, temple, school or community centre safer if the justice system still cannot follow through. It would not reassure vulnerable Canadians if the government confuses passing a bill with solving a problem. When those failures become clear, no one on that side of the House should pretend they were not warned. They were warned by civil liberties groups. They were warned by faith communities of all kinds. They were warned by legal experts. They were warned by organizations from many different walks of life, many of whom rarely agree on much else but agreed on this. They agreed that Bill C-9 is not the careful, enforceable, unifying response that Canadians deserve. The government had a choice. It could have listened. It could have fixed the bill. It could have spent the time necessary to work with the provinces to truly hear what they need, not in terms of words but in terms of enforcement, in terms of resources, in terms of real support. It could have brought forward a measure focused on real enforcement, real protection and real accountability. Instead, the government chose closure. They chose more words on paper. None of us are safer or more united for those choices. If this government is not interested in meaningful debate, we might as well save our breath. I move: That this House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, I have lost track of the number of times I have stood in the House in the last few days to talk about the government's again ramming a bill through the House. In this case, the bill has not had the benefit of second reading, committee study, third reading or report stage. It has not been to the Senate. It has not had the benefit of being studied in either House. It concerns an extremely important area of policy and law in this country, and we have seen the unintended consequences of badly drafted Liberal bills being rammed through the House. We saw it with Bill C-3, wherein there are unintended consequences, including lots of Americans who are discovering their connections to Canada. We have seen it with the minister's actions when he was the mayor of Vancouver. This is an area that we have to get right, and I would urge the government not to do this. I would challenge the minister to explain why Canadians should not get the benefit of debate on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a variety of arguments from this side of the House as to why cutting debate off on this bill is short-sighted, but perhaps one of the most important reasons is because, as my hon. colleague explained, it does not just cut off debate in the House; it also means this bill will never go to committee. What that means is that the experts, the constituents, the members of civil society in this country who might have something to say with respect to this bill, which might actually be useful to the government, will not get the chance to be heard. I certainly understand why the member does not want to go to committee. I have seen him there, and it is not good, but I want to know why the minister is also cutting off Canadians from having their say about the bill through our committee process.