Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, Conservatives want to do something about gas and diesel taxes. We want to see all of those taxes scrapped until Canada Day 2027 because Canadians are struggling. That is what I am going to talk about today. I am also splitting my time with the member for Edmonton Griesbach who is going to continue the argument. Why do we want to scrap all gas and diesel taxes? They are costing Canadians money that they do not have right now. Anyone who has gone to the grocery store recently can see it is grim. I was looking to buy some chicken thighs and a small pack of chicken thighs at a not-so-fancy grocery chain was $43. When I was looking at it, somebody said, “I think that’s a deal.” That is insane. We want to see the gas tax scrapped until Canada Day next year because when that tax is in place, not only does it affect consumers at the pump who are spending money they do not have, but it also affects the cost of everything. It affects the producers who are harvesting, who need diesel for their combines. That cost is then passed along to the consumer. It takes gas and diesel to transport the goods that consumers need to buy. When those taxes are on top of that fuel, who pays for it? It is the people who are listening to this speech today. That is why the Conservatives’ core focus for the fall is to save Canadians money. This is why we are calling for the government to scrap all gas and diesel taxes until Canada Day 2027. The bill that we are debating today that the Liberals put forward does not do that. They had an opportunity to work collaboratively in the House with the opposition, which is fiscally responsible, and take our recommendations, but they are not doing that. To me, this underscores the fact that the Liberals and the Prime Minister go out and talk to people using a lot of buzzwords and a lot of aggrandizing on the international stage. However, I am not seeing a lot of results when it comes to saving Canadians money. Make no mistake; what I am hearing about in the good riding of Calgary Nose Hill, and I am always pleased to stand up and fight on behalf of my constituents, is that they need to have money saved. They cannot afford to live. They are worried about their jobs, particularly with trade uncertainty. They want to be safe and they want to see immigration fixed. All of these points can come together in some of the policies that Conservatives have been pushing, but we are just not seeing them come forward in this particular bill. I want to show members how imperative the Conservative proposal is to have the gas and diesel tax scrapped well into next year, which is not in this bill. Money Mentors reported that 49% of working Canadians feel less financially secure than they did a year ago. That is half of Canadians. This is not some esoteric guessing game. Half of Canadians are saying they do not feel as secure as they used to feel. This is particularly true for young Canadians. I know there are a lot of Canadians of secondary school age who cannot find jobs, and they are also asking what their future holds. It is imperative that we fight on behalf of those people. People are paying more for goods because of a decade of Liberal inflationary deficits. Those deficits have actually ballooned under the Prime Minister. I thought the Prime Minister was supposed to get our fiscal house in order. In fact, he has done the opposite. People ask me why they should care about deficits. Deficits matter because they add to our debt. When we add to the nation’s debt, we have to pay debt servicing costs. It is like the interest on one’s credit card. When we are paying for that, we cannot invest in other things. I heard that the Government of Canada is now paying more for the interest on its credit card than it is on health care. That is not great. We need to ensure that, if the government is spending money on things, it is spending money on things or making fiscal decisions that are going to save Canadians money. That is why Conservatives are calling for the gas and diesel tax to be scrapped well into next year, which this bill would not do. It does not go far enough. That is a key objective. The other thing is that we have to talk about how we save Canadian jobs. Eliminating the gas and diesel tax well into next year would also provide some investment certainty for certain types of businesses that are trying to figure out their operating costs in an environment where there is a lot of uncertainty, which is what is happening in the country right now. This is why we as Conservatives are so dead set on putting forward measures that would save Canadians money, and their jobs as well. I serve as the Conservative Party’s immigration shadow minister. I also serve as the vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. The reality is that the Liberals brought too many people in too fast for housing, health care and jobs to keep up. That is not fair to anyone. It is not fair to the immigrants who came to Canada to build a better life. It is not fair to the Canadians who are here. In fact, that tension of bringing in too many people too fast has eroded Canada’s consensus on immigration. Now we have a lot of people competing for jobs that are rapidly disappearing. That is why Conservatives, including me and our broader team, are arguing for far lower immigration levels. We are arguing for the government to take measures to deal with this. CBC reported that there will be two million people in Canada by the end of this year who are on expired or expiring visas. We know that there are 500,000 undocumented persons and people who do not have a legal reason to be in the country. They need to leave. The government needs to have a plan to deport these people. It is not something that is comfortable for Canadians to talk about, but if people do not have a legal reason to be in the country, particularly because the Liberal government brought too many people in too fast, that problem has to be addressed. We are also going to continue to push those issues. When I hear the Liberals come forward and make all these announcements, they never seem to reach the people in my community. I think about the multitude of announcements they have made, and all I hear in my community is that people are waking up feeling like they can buy less groceries. They are less convinced that they can make their rent payments. Many of the people in my community would love to be making a mortgage payment, but they cannot afford to buy a house. Again, we are talking about saving Canadians money. That is why Conservatives are putting forward proposals like scrapping the GST on new home builds up to $1.3 million. That would save Canadians who are buying homes up to $65,000 on a new house. Those are common-sense measures that we do not see reflected in this bill that would directly impact the Canadians who are struggling to get ahead and pay their bills. This affects all Canadians. It is not just young Canadian, but seniors on fixed incomes. Inflation is in a lot of ways unique to Canada because of the policies and procedures the Liberals have put in place over the last several years. People cannot afford that. What I would like to see, and what I know everybody in the Conservative Party would like to see, is for the government, instead of bringing in this bill or even amending it, to take our suggestion to scrap the tax on gas and diesel well into next year. We propose Canada Day. The bill would not do that. I would like to see from the government not just announcements to spend government money, but announcements that would directly impact affordability, directly drive down grocery costs and directly make the lives of the constituents in my riding more affordable and more stable. This is so important. It is why we are here. We are in an economic crisis. The government put us in a weak position before this happened, but now we have to deal with it. Having bills that are just half measures is not going to cut it for the people in Calgary Nose Hill or across Canada. I implore the government to take the Conservative proposal to change this bill so that the gas tax is cut on diesel and gas up to Canada Day 2027.