Helena Konanz

In response to a question from William Stevenson

“I support this bill, but the fuel tax cut ends too soon. Life will still be expensive after April. People in my area are already struggling because of recent wildfires and lost tourism. Canadians will need tax relief for much longer.”

“Mr. Speaker, obviously this is a temporary fix. I do not think there is anyone in the House or anyone in Canada right now who thinks that life is going to be a lot more affordable by April, when this tax relief is due to end in the bill. We need to look at the long run here. This is going to be a tough winter. This is going to be very difficult in my riding. In particular, as many members know, many people in my riding have suffered through the recent wildfire disasters. Our tourism has hit, unfortunately, rock bottom right now, because of the fires during our big tourist season. It is not just in my riding. Throughout Canada, we are going through a very difficult time, and we are going to need relief far beyond this April.”

In response to a question from Caroline Desrochers

“Conservatives want to make life more affordable, but we vote against policies that make no sense. We want to cut gas taxes. In a large riding like mine, where it takes eight hours to drive across, people need cheaper gas.”

“Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have been pushing to make life more affordable. When we have packages of bills that come at us or policies that come at us that do not make sense, of course we are not going to accept every one. We need Canadians’ lives to be more affordable. We have been pushing for lower taxes on gasoline everywhere, but in a riding like mine, where it is a seven- to eight-hour drive from end to end, one can understand why Canadians or why the people in my riding need to have gas prices go down. That is what we have been pushing for since last year.”

“I support this bill to cut the fuel tax, but it does not go far enough. People in my rural riding have to drive, and high fuel prices make everything more expensive. We should change this bill to keep the tax relief longer and eventually remove federal fuel taxes for good.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House to represent the great residents of Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay. Their words and their feedback will always guide me in this chamber, as they do in this debate on Bill C-38. For rural and remote communities like the one I represent, driving is a fact of life. It is not a choice. When I checked GasBuddy before coming to the House today, I found that regular gas was priced as high as $2.09 per litre and diesel was $2.95 a litre. Whether someone lives in Tulameen, Princeton, Keremeos, Cawston, Osoyoos, Rock Creek, Midway, Greenwood, Grand Forks, Christina Lake or Castlegar, a basic fact of life is that they drive, which means that almost everyone is paying high prices at the pump. The journey I just described across my riding is 360 kilometres. Unlike the urban regions of the country that many Liberal colleagues across from me represent, there is no SkyTrain. There is no subway, no LimeBike and no e-scooter that my constituents can turn to and travel across our riding in. Transportation costs are also affected by high gas prices. These costs then transfer to nearly every item on store shelves. Keeping prices down at the pump, as we have been speaking about for the past year, means keeping prices down on essential items at Walmart, Canadian Tire and Safeway. This is true not just for my constituents, but for anyone across the country who lives in a remote or rural region, from island communities to our Arctic territories. This is why, since the spring, my colleagues and I on this side of the House have been arguing that at a time of higher gas prices, the result of both conflict abroad and policy decisions at home, it was of the utmost importance for all members of Parliament to act to reduce the price of gas where we can do so. No one is pretending it can or should magically fall to zero, but providing tax relief at the pump is the least we can do when so many Canadians are in need. It is no coincidence that the lack of an affordable life is the number one thing I heard from my constituents this summer. I am guessing everyone else heard the same thing while they were in their ridings this summer. Of course, there were other issues, including health care, tariffs and wildfires. In my region, as many know, wildfires hit Summerland and the Penticton area tremendously. This was obviously what people talked about, but gas prices were very important because they have skyrocketed 25.7%, while overall energy costs have surged 16%. This pushed transportation costs up 7% while grocery prices rose 3%. A recent poll found that 63% of Canadians oppose the Liberals bringing back the fuel excise tax, including 43% who strongly oppose it. This includes 72% of seniors, 68% of women and 61% of those aged 35 to 54. Opposition crosses every region of the country: 71% in Manitoba and Saskatchewan; 64% in British Columbia, Alberta and Atlantic Canada; 62% in Ontario; and 60% in Quebec. Everyone is opposed to this tax, in other words. There is no reason the House cannot deliver for them. When the Liberals offered what they called summer gas tax relief, it was clear that what they were offering was not only insufficient, but very confusing. When I asked government members about this policy, they made no commitment to it beyond the summer, and the member for Delta also made it sound like the policy was meant to help people explore our home province and go camping. While I did have the opportunity to see much of my beautiful province this summer, it was not cheap to do so. In fact, I know several British Columbians who cancelled road trips and hunting expeditions this summer because the cost was too much and the price of gas was too high. Those costs will only rise as the snow starts to fall. That is why my colleagues and I were clear on the need for an extension to the gas tax relief so it could go further and for longer than just the summer until Labour Day. The bill before us today is because of those efforts, stopping what would have been a punishing tax hike at the pumps just this month. The Liberals’ rosy rhetoric has not matched what Canadians are seeing in their wallets or on their bank statements. They cannot afford higher taxes. Thanks to Conservatives keeping up the fight for affordability, Canadians will keep more money in their pockets when they are filling up at the gas station this month, but we can go further. We can improve the bill before us. Bill C-38, as it is currently written, would suspend the fuel tax until January 31, 2027. Half the tax would return on February 1 and the full tax on April 1. Is the Liberal government predicting that Canadians will not be challenged by the costs at the grocery store, by their heating bills or by the price of the pump by April 1? Is everything going to change by then? I do not believe the Liberals have invented that kind of crystal ball, so why time-limit the relief people need? Why reimpose taxes they are currently recognizing as unnecessary? The Liberals have filled their treasury with unnecessary taxes and fees from Canadians’ pockets. They have wasted far more tax dollars than we need in order to fund health care, road repairs or national defence properly. Canadians should not have to pay more for Liberal waste. The Minister of Finance himself said that truckers, farmers, home builders and delivery drivers benefit from fuel tax relief. Would they not benefit more if the government extended this relief to Canada next year, as we are calling for? Would they not benefit by permanently eliminating some of the government’s gas taxes at the pump, as Conservatives are calling for? Of course, the only reason to allow gas taxes to go higher is that the government would choose to prioritize raising taxes instead of providing limited relief. Removing all federal taxes on gas and diesel, including the fuel excise tax, is what we are calling for. Eliminating costly fuel taxes like the fuel standard tax permanently would help keep prices lower. The Liberal government does not need more of Canadians’ gas tax dollars for wasteful boutique projects like Alto rail, which will cost Canadians $60 billion to $90 billion in its life cycle. Instead of forcing families of four in my community to spend between $8,000 and $9,000 on eastern Canadian priorities, they want to see their gas tax dollars spent on efficient local infrastructure, like a secondary route for the South Okanagan to Kelowna, which we have been calling for for years. Conservatives support the Liberals’ half measures like those in Bill C-38 if it means Canadians can get some savings, but we will be pushing for more. The legislation has the potential to provide more relief for longer, but only if we amend it. I hope all colleagues in the House can work together to do just that.”

• Echo ×3

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  “A recent poll found that 63% of Canadians oppose the Liberals bringing back the fuel excise tax.”

  Said 3 times by 3 members since September 22.

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In response to a question from Mario Beaulieu

“We need more health care spending, but we must spend it properly. We should not spend money on buildings or more office workers. We need to spend it on doctors, nurses, and medical machines so people can actually get care.”

“Mr. Speaker, as my colleague may know, health spending is extremely important to me. I sit on the Standing Committee on Health right now. I agree that there are certain places where we need an increase in health spending, but we have to make sure that it is spent properly. We cannot spend any more on infrastructure or buildings for which we need to hire more and more bureaucracy. We need to spend it on boots on the ground. We need more doctors. We need more nurses. We need more MRI machines. We need things that would help people actually have a doctor. Thousands of people in my riding alone do not have a doctor.”

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In response to a question from Kevin Lamoureux

“It is very important to support the military. Conservatives have stood up for our soldiers, but the Liberals have not.”

“Mr. Speaker, any time that anybody is supporting the military in the House, it is extremely important to do so. Unfortunately, the Liberals have not supported it in the past. It is the Conservatives who have stood up for the people who fight for this country.”

“I am moving an amendment to change the rules for debating this bill. The government is spending too much money and adding to our debt while the economy is in a recession. Families and seniors in my riding cannot afford food and housing, and the government's economic plan will not fix this.”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the motion as it relates to the Liberal government’s spring economic statement. It may be the spring season that prompted the Liberals to use this update to paint a rosy picture of our economy, but the reality on the ground is that the real and non-partisan numbers show a stark picture for residents in my community, especially among working families and struggling seniors. The economic statement shows spending continuing to rise rapidly and no binding fiscal anchors. The growing deficit will only worsen as the Liberal government borrows more against the national debt. Debt service costs are rising rapidly, eating up more of each tax dollar than total spending on health care or defence. The fact is, Canada’s economy has entered a recession. That is not a political talking point but an agreed economic viewpoint for decades. Any period in which our economy sees two consecutive quarters of declining GDP is widely called a recession. This has been a mantra of economic statistics for decades. If others want to fight over the difference between a recession and a technical recession, the fact remains that there is nothing technical about a weak economy, as the Governor of the Bank of Canada described it just last week. A weak economy is what we see in 2026, when 112,000 more Canadians are out of work in just the first four months of this year and where, by per-person GDP, Canadians still have a lower standard of living than they did in 2022. Worsening signs like this for Canadian household finances are, sadly, not hard to come by. Household savings fell to the lowest level in two years, with Canada having the highest household debt in the G7 by far. Statistics Canada found that Canadian household debt has outstripped income for six consecutive quarters. Equifax reported that insolvency volumes increased to levels not seen since 2009, up nearly 19% year over year. There are 1.5 million Canadians who have missed a debt payment in the first three months of this year alone, with mortgage delinquency rates climbing 32% year over year. The Prime Minister promised us he would build the fastest-growing economy in the G7, yet we are alone among the G7 in having our economy shrink in three of the last four quarters. Promises to build quickly and build big to fortify the Canadian economy, through measures like the major projects act, a bill that I voted for, have not come to pass. Canada has neither designated nor started a single major economic project to fast-track a year after we passed that legislation. Instead, years of Liberal laws creating burdensome regulations, high taxes and persistent large-budget deficits have all made it increasingly expensive for businesses to invest in Canada. I understand that many want to hold on to the belief that the rosy picture the Prime Minister paints of the country is accurate, but looking at his peers outside politics, we see the real story. The Prime Minister’s own choice for the non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer said that the Liberals’ deficits are billions higher than they claim. She showed that promises to reduce government spending are not reflected in rising personal costs, which will also increase by billions of dollars over the next several years. She showed that the government’s revenue forecasts will fall short because of expected weaker wages and slower salary growth in a worsening economy. Lastly, she said the government’s fiscal plan has a 1% chance of meeting its fiscal anchor to reduce the deficit-to-GDP ratio each year. As someone who knows balance sheets in both the private and public sectors, I can say that if a fiscal plan showed only a 1% chance of succeeding, any small business or local government would be revising the plan. Instead, the Liberal government moves forward with more spending and more debt, which will only result in more taxes and more inflation. These are the national figures, but I would like to take a moment to focus on how these national trends are causing real tension in communities like mine in Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay. A real and growing consequence of higher-than-average unemployment, sluggish wages and food inflation is that more people are turning to local food banks. No one should ever be ashamed of turning to food banks, but government should be ashamed of the worsening affordability crisis pushing more workers, more seniors and groups that have historically not availed themselves of food banks to use their services for the very first time in their lives. The government’s allocated funding for food banks is insufficient. It will not curb the worsening affordability curve. We have seen that it is pushing these groups toward food bank services. The Liberal government has overseen the worst rise in food bank use in a generation, surpassing levels during the 2008 financial crisis and the height of COVID-19, and rural Canada is really suffering. The amazing volunteers I recently met with at the Boundary Community Food Bank told me that they have seen a 73% increase in demand for their services since 2020, with 25% of their regular clients having only applied within the last year and 20% of their clients working full- or part-time. They told me that they now see over 100 seniors from within this little community needing their services each month, and this is just in the Boundary. It does not cover the Kootenays, the Similkameen, the South Okanagan or Penticton. Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay has one of the oldest demographics in Canada. Seniors used to be the demographic most likely to donate to food banks. They were more likely to fill out a volunteer form than to apply for a food hamper. That is now changing rapidly. This increased turn for our seniors is leaving them financially vulnerable and less able to participate in their own communities as much as they once did. This is a huge loss. Volunteers at community events have traditionally been older, partially because they had a little more in their bank accounts to fill an extra tank of gas for volunteer driving, for buying extra hamburgers or hot dogs, or for giving a little more of their day. After speaking with people in my region, and after speaking with colleagues from across the country, I feel that seniors are increasingly unable to volunteer because of the cost of living. Over the last few years in my region, we have seen the loss of community events, such as those in the community of Penticton. In the last few years, we have lost Ironman, the Pentastic Jazz Fest, Ribfest and Okanagan Granfondo. Service clubs, which in the past were made up of seniors volunteering, are dwindling. It is impacting the entire community as a whole, and many seniors who are facing a financial crunch are considering even more dire options than simply not volunteering. My office has heard from too many seniors who have exhausted their benefits and drained their savings and are inquiring into the terms of an application for MAID. It is a horrifying thought that, in Canada, the financial burden being carried by seniors should have them think that the best option is to end their life early, not on medical grounds but because of a harshly rising cost of living. This symbolizes an unaffordable Canada none of us should accept. Unfortunately, the spring economic update shows us little change in course to restore an affordable Canada for workers, families and seniors. I move, seconded by the member for Oshawa: That the amendment be amended, in paragraph (b), by replacing the words “paragraphs (b) to (f)” with the words “paragraphs (b) and (d) to (f)”.”

“I agree with my colleague. The Liberals refuse to admit that our economy is struggling and that Canadians are having a hard time.”

“Mr. Speaker, I largely share my colleague’s view. I would like to know what he thinks about the fact that the Liberals refuse to acknowledge the economic situation in Canada, that they do not believe Canadians are going through a difficult time, and that they believe everything is fine for the average Canadian.”

“Canada is the only G7 country in a recession. Our deficit grew from $40 billion to almost $100 billion. I want to know how the government thinks this is acceptable.”

“Mr. Speaker, we are the only G7 country in a recession. Two years ago, we had a $40-billion deficit that was considered outrageous by the Canadian people, and now we have an almost $100-billion deficit. In what way does the Liberal government think that is okay?”

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“The government wasted 300 million dollars on a digital prescription program. I want the health minister and the head of the program to testify in a public hearing about what happened.”

“Mr. Speaker, 300 million tax dollars were wasted on PrescribeIT. Liberal members of the health committee have refused every request to answer why or how. The Minister of Health and the CEO must testify. Canadians want to know how their tax dollars were wasted on this boondoggle. Will the Liberal minister agree it is time to stop the secrets, keep the cameras on and investigate PrescribeIT in public?”

“People in my riding are struggling to afford food, and the country is in a recession. The Liberals keep denying there is a problem. What is the danger of denying these clear issues?”

“Mr. Speaker, I always learn so much whenever my colleague stands in the House. I am hearing constantly from the people in my riding that they are struggling with basic needs, like putting food on the table. I know I am not the only one. I am sure every MP in this room right now, every MP who was elected in the last year, feels the same thing. We know from the data that there is a recession. We know there are issues in Canada, but the Liberals keep denying that anything is wrong. What does my colleague think is the danger of denying issues like this when they are so blatant? I know the Liberals are hearing the same things we are hearing. What is the danger of denial?”

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