Kevin Lamoureux

“Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Calgary Heritage. It is an honour to rise in the House on behalf of the people of Calgary McKnight. Canada is facing serious challenges, both around the world and here at home. Our economy is under pressure, and our relationships with other countries are changing. Energy plays a big role in all of this. That is why today’s debate in the House is so important. Gasoline gets Canadians to work and their children to school. It gets seniors to medical appointments and tradespeople to their next job. Diesel powers the farm equipment that grows our food, and the trucks that bring it to our grocery stores. It moves lumber and concrete to construction sites so workers can build the homes we need. It fuels the buses that carry commuters across our cities. The price of fuel is more than just a number on a gas station sign. It affects the cost of the products we use every day. When fuel costs rise, Canadians feel it far beyond the pump. They feel it at the grocery checkout, when they buy their children’s school clothes and when they pick up everyday basics such as bread and milk. For too many families, the pressure of rising food prices has become a crisis. Nearly one in four Canadians, about 10 million people, now lives in a food-insecure household. Families are being forced to make difficult choices. One in five people has skipped meals or reduced portion sizes because of financial pressure, and nearly half have cut back on meat, dairy and fresh produce. Alarmingly, women, single-parent households and people with disabilities are among those most affected by rising food costs. Like me, many people in northeast Calgary came to Canada for the opportunity to build a better life. They came here to work hard, raise their family and start a small business, but after 11 years of Liberal policies, life has become harder and more expensive. Seniors on a fixed income are struggling to pay for food and fuel. Small businesses depend on fuel to receive supplies and serve their customers. Northeast Calgary is a major transportation hub, and truck drivers are spending more at the pump and taking less money home to their family. The Liberals should be making it easier for these people to earn a living, not planning to bring fuel taxes back. Higher fuel costs also affect the decisions small businesses make about their future. A trucking company that spends more on diesel has less money to replace an aging truck, maintain its equipment or hire another driver. A small business owner may delay expanding because there is simply not enough money left. Businesses cannot plan for growth when the Liberals keep adding to their costs. For years, Conservatives have warned that high taxes and unnecessary red tape drive investments out of our country. When a company takes its investment elsewhere, Canadian workers lose jobs and opportunities that investment could have created. We cannot afford to lose more. The government should be lowering costs so businesses can grow here, hire here and build their future here. Conservatives have long called on the Liberals to lower taxes and let Canadians keep more of what they earn. For years we demanded an end to the consumer carbon tax. After defending it at every turn, the Liberals finally removed it, but that still left other federal taxes and costs on fuel in place. These included the excise tax of 10¢ per litre on gasoline and four cents per litre on diesel, the GST, costs imposed by the clean fuel regulations, and the industrial carbon tax. Earlier this year, Conservatives renewed our call for fuel tax relief. We called on the Liberals to suspend the excise tax and the GST on gas and diesel for the rest of 2026, and to permanently scrap the clean fuel regulations and the industrial carbon tax. The Liberals adopted only part of our plan. They suspended the fuel excise tax, but only until Labour Day. Conservatives pressured the Liberals to extend that relief because families and businesses could not afford to see those costs return. Bill C-38 would extend the full suspension until January 31, 2027. Half the tax would return on February 1, followed by the full tax on April 1. I welcome a few more months of relief for Canadians, but what happens after January 31? Families will still need to drive to work. Truckers will still need to deliver goods. Small businesses will still need to serve their customers. Conservatives will support Bill C-38 because every dollar Canadians save matters, but we are calling on the Liberals to go further: extend the fuel excise tax suspension and remove the GST on gas and diesel until at least Canada Day 2027. We are also calling on the Liberals to permanently scrap the clean fuel regulations and the industrial carbon tax, to give families and businesses relief that lasts beyond the next few months. Our plan would keep the 10¢ excise tax off every litre of gasoline, remove eight cents in GST and eliminate seven cents in costs from the clean fuel regulations. That adds up to approximately 25¢ per litre, or $20 on an 80-litre fill-up. The Liberals have a responsibility to pay for this relief by putting their own spending in order. They cannot keep adding to the deficit and leaving further generations to pay the bill. Conservatives have called for reductions in wasteful spending on consultants, bureaucracy and programs that do not deliver value for taxpayers. Families across Canada are reviewing every expense to make ends meet. They deserve a government that is willing to examine its own expenses with the same care. Canadians need more than a few months of relief, and Conservatives will keep fighting until the Liberals adopt our full plan to lower fuel costs and leave more money in the pockets of Canadians.”