John-Paul Danko

“Madam Speaker, let me begin by acknowledging the obvious: Suspending the federal fuel excise tax for a few more months will provide some relief, but this bill fails to provide any real long-term solutions for Canadians and the challenges they face today. Conservatives have been pushing this for a long time, but once again, we see the Liberal government take our idea, then fail to properly execute it. Bill C-38 would extend the temporary suspension only until January 31, 2027, meaning Canadians would eventually face the return of the full tax. The government is presenting a temporary pause followed by a scheduled tax increase and calling it an affordability plan. That is not a plan. It is just delaying what comes next, just like all the inflation they caused. Canadians are still skipping meals because of it. Fuel is not a luxury in Canada. Our country is massive and our cities continue to expand, meaning many residents must travel a considerable distance between their homes and workplaces. Transit is not an option for every shift worker, tradesperson, health care worker or parent. Many families need two vehicles simply to manage work, school, appointments and their children’s activities. When the government taxes fuel, it is increasing the cost of everything transported in this country. Groceries, building materials and medical supplies arrive by truck. The equipment used by contractors and energy workers runs on fuel. Higher transportation costs move through the supply chain until they appear on the receipt paid by the consumer. Canada’s truck drivers are essential to our economy. They transport our food, fuel, building materials, agricultural products and countless other goods that Canadians depend on every single day. Without truckers, grocery store shelves would empty, construction projects would stall and businesses across this country would struggle to operate. How can a trucking company plan its expenses, negotiate contracts, hire employees or invest in new equipment when the government provides no lasting certainty about fuel taxation? I have had the pleasure to meet with representatives of multiple trucking companies operating in my home of Calgary, such as Kuldip Sandhu from Syndicate Transport, Inderjit Sangha from Rig Logistics Inc. and Randhir Brar from New Way Trucking. Each of these companies employs over 400 truckers who do the vital service of delivering the food all Canadians need. We all rely on their hard work and it is time for the government to show them the appreciation they deserve with a real long-term tax break on diesel. We need it now. The trucking industry does not operate on a short-term schedule. Businesses make investments that last years. Owners take out loans, maintain expensive equipment, pay insurance premiums and compete for contracts in an increasingly challenging market. These are not expenses that disappear when a government tax holiday expires. I know for a fact that even large trucking companies are struggling to stay in business under these conditions and they are facing increasing operating costs. Let us think of the small owner-operators who are hard-working and are working long hours just to cover the cost of diesel, maintenance, insurance and financing. What does that leave them to take home to their families? Nothing. Owner-operators are vital to this industry, such as Harjinder Grewal, a hard-working Calgary father being punished by high diesel prices and who deserves real action to address this crisis. When diesel prices rise, the impact is immediate. When freight rates fail to keep pace with those expenses, the trucker is left absorbing the differences. When a trucker can no longer afford to operate, it is not just one business that suffers but also a family, a local employer and potentially an entire supply chain. Bill C-38 is nowhere near enough. The government wants Canadians to believe that extending the temporary suspension of the federal fuel excise tax is a meaningful solution to the affordability crisis. While any reductions in fuel costs are welcome and we support them, we must ask a simple question: What happens when the temporary relief ends? This is why Bill C-38 falls short. It treats fuel affordability as a temporary political inconvenience instead of as one part of the growing, broader cost of living crisis. People in Canada have endured rising mortgage payments, higher rents, expensive groceries and growing utility bills. If suspending the tax would help families in October, it would also help them in February. The timing of this would also cut out relief for some of the hardest-working Canadians: our farmers. The tax would go up right when they need diesel the most, for spring seeding and the hard work they will put in all summer to grow the food we desperately need. The government cannot argue that the tax is harmful enough to suspend now but harmless enough to restore a few months later. Conservatives would take a different approach. We would amend the legislation so relief would last longer and give Canadians meaningful certainty. Conservatives call for the government to remove all federal taxes on gas and diesel until Canada Day 2027 at the earliest. Doing this would save all Canadians up to 25¢ per litre. This may not sound like much, but it adds up. In the end, this would bring as much as $1,000 of savings for the average Canadian family. That amount of money can help feed many struggling families. The tax cut must also include the seven-cent-per-litre clean fuel regulations, the GST and a permanent cancellation of the industrial carbon tax, so Canadians are not forced to pay more for food and fuel. Bill C-38 would not fix any of these issues for the long term. Conservatives are criticizing the bill not because it would lower the tax but because the relief would be too limited and too short-lived. I call on the government to work with the opposition to improve this legislation, extend the relief, remove all scheduled tax increases, stop taxing tax through the GST on fuel, and give families and businesses a certainty that lasts beyond the next political deadline. If the government refuses, then it should at least be honest about what Bill C-38 is. It is not about fixing the affordability crisis facing Canadians. It is about giving the illusion of addressing the crisis.”