44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 26, 2022 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I will finish by saying that the Prime Minister has announced more inflationary spending that does nothing to help seniors and families struggling to put gas in their tanks and food on their tables.
Could the hon. member comment on the fact-checking in his remarks today?
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Madam Speaker, the only thing the New Democratic Party has been doing, in conjunction with the Liberals, is pushing up inflationary spending as a result of agreeing to everything the Liberals put in front of them.
I said this before and I will say it again. If the member wanted to see different changes, things that are not currently within these bills or other ideas she had, she should have done a better job in negotiating with the government when they came to their agreement. I find it very rich that she accuses us of inaction, when in fact it is her and her party that have done a fantastic job of raising inflationary spending and running this nation into the ground.
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Madam Speaker, the government had the opportunity on many occasions to not spend the amount of money it did to raise inflationary spending, but it did not choose that. It chose to spend, and it is Canadians who will pay for it.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Peace River—Westlock. Before I begin my remarks on Bill C-30, I do want to express my condolences and sympathies to all those suffering along the Atlantic seaboard. Even though they prepared as best they could, there have been some tragic results. I know that all Canadians are hoping for the very best, and for a very strong and quick recovery for all those affected.
Right now, Canada is facing the highest rate of inflation in 40 years. Canadians are struggling. They do not know what lies ahead or if it will get any easier. Grocery prices have risen at the fastest pace since 1981, soaring above 10% on average, with some items having risen over 30%. This means a typical family of four now spends over $1,200 more each year to put food on the table. That is if inflation does not rise further, something we have no guarantee of under the Liberal government.
Rising gas, heating and rent costs are weighing on the majority of Canadians, who are struggling to get from one paycheque to the other.
Rental increases are crippling income levels, with many having to take on second or third jobs to afford to pay their bills and travel to work. I have heard from many constituents who cannot afford the basic essentials anymore for themselves or their children.
If someone loses their rental accommodation for any reason, or needs to change location, they are hit with gouging increases. A single dad in my riding who has had full-time employment for years, and who is well regarded there, lost his basement suite because new owners wanted to take the space for themselves. He and his young son were literally priced out of other rental spaces that would be anyway similar. Friends are helping them out for now while he continues to try to find a home.
Bill C-30, which amends the goods and services tax credit, would double the amount for individuals and families with low and modest incomes. The GST credit would equal a one-time top-up for an additional $467 for singles without children with a net income of about $39,000, and up to $934 for a family of four. This one-time assistance measure, which Conservatives support as welcome tax relief for workers and families, does little to address the inflation-fuelled affordability crisis facing all Canadians. Individuals without children earning more than $49,200, or a couple with two children earning more than $58,500, would receive no benefits.
This benefit, which equates to $77 per month for a qualifying family of four, covers less than 40% of the Prime Minister's inflation at the grocery store alone, and does not begin to cover the rising costs of heat, gasoline and rent. More than 70% of families with children will not receive this support.
Housing, the cost of living crisis, homelessness and mental health concerns are top issues for B.C. residents. In 2021 alone, there were over 13 million visits to food banks across Canada. That is up 20%. Do the Liberals in the government, who often speak about the need to raise Canadian children out of poverty, realize that children represent over 30% of those food bank users in Canada?
Significantly, one in eight of those accessing food banks is employed. These services are a last resort for most, but they are becoming increasingly common for Canadians who have no other choice. Realistically, how could $77 a month address the burden of this level of desperation? It does not.
The core issue impacting every person in this country is rising inflation levels. Unlike tax-relief measures, such as the GST credit, the government is implementing inflationary proposals, such as tripling the carbon tax on April 1 and lowering every Canadians' paycheque by increasing the employment insurance and Canadian pension plan premiums on the first of January.
Under the previous Conservative government, CPP premiums remained stable and never increased. The fund was left actuarially sound for the next 75 years, and CPP benefits increased every year. Of course, working Canadians want to contribute to their retirements and will continue to do so, but this is not the time to increase those mandatory payments at source when buying power is shrinking more and more.
Tripling the carbon tax will mean that Canadians will again pay more for groceries and home heating and will add up to 37.57¢ per litre to the cost of gas. Yesterday, in the morning, in my riding of South Surrey—White Rock, regular gas prices were sitting at $2.339 a litre. The cost fell in the evening to a mere $2.289 per litre. At this rate, British Columbians will be paying close to three dollars per litre in no time at all.
My riding is a suburb of Vancouver with only one polytechnic university. White Rock is small and bordered beautifully by the water, but Surrey is growing rapidly. Infrastructure, however, has not yet fully caught up to the residential and industrial growth. In South Surrey, with no rapid transit and only bus lanes to get people in and out to Vancouver and beyond, or to get to the major universities in Burnaby and the UBC peninsula, these changes are burdensome and distressing to many who must drive to where they need to go. By the way, moving into Vancouver is not an option when a one-bedroom apartment now rents for $2,600 per month. The Liberals' one-time rent cheque would pay for about five to six days out of 365.
At a time when the national focus should be getting the country's deficit back under control, the government is clawing back at the drastically reduced disposable income of hard-working Canadians, instead of cutting unnecessary spending within the bureaucracy. This government's approach is very limited. It lacks long-term vision for economic recovery.
Many experts are raising alarm bells on the government's financial strategy. The heads of our major banks, including CIBC, the Bank of Montreal and Scotiabank are all warning that handing out cheques is inflationary and will make our economic woes worsen. Derek Holt, vice-president of Scotiabank, has stated, “Any belief that [these measures] will ease inflationary pressures must have studied different economics textbooks.”
Inflation has been described as the cruellest tax of all by economists, because it hurts everyone by making all goods and services more expensive and it impacts low-income Canadians, seniors and students the most. Despite the relief that is offered by the government, high inflation crushes the ability for low-income Canadians to afford the basic necessities of life and curbs the ability of middle-income households to afford optional activities like sports or better quality food for their kids.
According to finance professor Andrey Pavlov at SFU's Beedie school of business, “If we have high inflation and that inflation continues, that assistance isn’t going to do very much to help anyone, including the recipients of that assistance. It’s just not going to be enough.”
Conservatives are advocating to bring inflation back under control. We need to do that. We need to stop inflationary spending. Conservatives understand monetary policy. We warned that inflation would naturally result from the Liberals' spending sprees, which continue. We will fight the government's tax hikes and inflationary deficits to protect Canadian paycheques and savings. We must do this because Canadians are not enjoying a higher standard of living, as I just heard. Canadians are hurting, and it is our job to transform hurt into hope.
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Madam Speaker, I, too, want to add my voice to the discussion around Bill C-30.
In my lifetime, I have never experienced such inflationary times as these. We are living in immensely inflationary times, and I think this bill is an attempt to rectify that situation. We have seen a dramatic increase in the cost of living, the cost of food, the cost of fuel and the cost of housing. We have seen the average price of a house in Canada double over the last two years. Since the Prime Minister has become the Prime Minister, we have seen the price of housing double in this country. Over the last two years, we have seen butter, for example, come up 16%. Fuel has basically doubled in the last year. We are seeing how life is getting more and more expensive.
There are two ways to address this issue. First is to make more money in order to pay for the things that we need to pay for. Second is to try to lower the cost of living and the cost of everything that we have to pay for like housing and all of those things. The reality that will come into effect is that both of those things will happen. People will find ways to make more money and hopefully the government will work to reduce the cost of things or at least stem inflation.
We watched Joe Biden celebrate a little while ago. He said that inflation was flat for a particular month. He was wrong when he said that. In fact, inflation did not increase for a particular month. The percentage of inflation is how much one's money is being reduced in value every month. If the inflation rate is running at 5%, then our money is worth 5% less over that particular period of time. If that inflation rate stays at 5% and does not increase to 6%, that is not good news. It is just that, over the next same amount of time, that money will be worth 5% less instead of being worth 6% less. An inflation rate that is close to zero is what the goal of our whole system ought to be.
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Madam Speaker, I was just running my timer.
Nonetheless, there is the work that needs to be done to make life more affordable in Canada and to reduce the inflation rate. What kind of tools does the government have at its disposal to reduce the inflation rate? Taxation is a big part of the tools the government has. We, as Conservatives, are calling on the government to impose no new taxes.
On January 1 we will have a brand new tax increase on CPP and EI premiums. Happy new year. They are not optional fees for people to pay. If they were optional, the government may have been able to get away with not calling them taxes, but they will come off of people's paycheques whether they like it or not. They are taxes. That will reduce the amount of money people take home. They will make people's paycheques smaller, essentially. That will not help the inflation situation. It is not necessarily driving inflation, but it is one of the things that will not help people get over the inflation hump, so to speak.
On the other side of this, on April 1 the carbon tax will go up. The carbon tax is very much an inflationary tax. The carbon tax gets built into the cost of everything. Whether it is the shoes we wear, the food we eat, driving to work, driving the kids to school, or driving anywhere, the carbon tax is making all of that exponentially more expensive.
One thing that happens is that the carbon tax gets added into every part of the economy. When the raw products are taken out of the ground or the trees are taken out of the forest, the trucks that haul the trees to the lumber mill are paying for the carbon tax on their fuel. That cost gets built into the transportation costs of bringing the raw product out of the forest to the mill. The mill has to pay the carbon tax on the energy the mill uses to process that, so there is another added cost. As well, all of the packaging materials and supplies the mill needs are being shipped to that mill and they are paying the carbon tax on the products that are coming in, which is adding an increased cost.
Most of these mills are publicly traded. Our pension funds are probably invested in these particular companies. As everybody wants to retire, they want a return on their investment. They are looking for a nominal 10% return on their investments. There is an expectation that no matter what the costs are to that particular mill, they have to turn a profit, so they are going to increase the cost. When the carbon tax on all of these different things is added to their input, it raises the cost of their input. When they sell their products, lumber for example, they are going to have to increase the price of lumber in order to get the 10% return they are offering to their shareholders and people who have invested in the stock market. There is that dramatic increase.
As that carbon tax is bumped up, it cascades through the economy making it more expensive. I never even talked about that lumber getting delivered. The carbon tax will be charged as part of the costs of the truck driver for hauling it, including the diesel fuel needed for that particular truck hauling that lumber away from the mill to the local lumber yard. The local lumber yard is paying carbon tax on the natural gas they burn to keep the building warm. They are paying it on what they deliver. By the time someone gets that lumber delivered to their yard, there may not be a line on the invoice for that lumber that says “carbon tax” but rest assured that a significant amount of the cost of that two-by-four will be for carbon tax.
The increase in the carbon tax on April 1, in particular, could be paused by the government. The government could pause that increase instead of ramping it up to three times from what it currently is. It could pause it or it could remove the carbon tax. The removal of the carbon tax would have the dramatic effect of reducing the cost of things across the country. I think that currently the carbon tax on gasoline is 12¢ a litre.
Imagine if, in much the same way as Alberta has done, the provincial fuel tax was removed. When oil went over $90 a barrel, Alberta removed the fuel tax, causing a dramatic decrease in the price of fuel, which made life more affordable. People could get to work and their paycheques could go further. I hear more frequently from people who are having to ration their funds with respect to what they are buying and how they are heating their homes just so they can buy fuel for their pickup truck to make it to wherever they work.
The Conservatives are calling for two things. One is a reduction in, the removal of, or no increase to the carbon tax on April 1. This would help to stem the tide of inflation and dramatically improve the cost of things. Two is no increase to the payroll taxes. This would allow people's paycheques to pay for all the things they need.
The Conservatives are also calling on the government to quit borrowing money, quit raising taxes and quit raising inflation. We are calling on the government to stop borrowing money. We are calling for a one-to-one ratio. When the government wants to spend new money on a new program or a new initiative, it has to go back to the budget and find where there are some savings, whether that is from a program it is not interested in using anymore or it does not need. As society progresses, we see the government spend money and then, over time, the programs are not necessarily needed any longer. We are looking for that one-to-one savings, no new taxes, and for the government to balance the budget in the coming years.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Victoria.
It is a huge honour to rise today on Bill C-30, to help provide relief for the cost of living and double the GST tax credit. It is really great to finally hear that the Conservatives are getting on board with an NDP proposal, as well as the Liberals. We have been calling for this for a long time. Our leader has been calling for this since early in the year, to provide targeted relief to people who are being hit the hardest by inflation.
When I talk about inflation, we are seeing a 41-year high in the rise of inflation and the prices of groceries, 10.8% just in the last year. I was just at the Port Alberni Friendship Centre at the elders luncheon. I was talking to elders, and they were telling me how unaffordable it is getting. People are living in already compromised housing, in precarious situations, struggling to make ends meet, to pay for groceries or cell phone fees or to put gas in the tank. They are being hit from all sides.
When I talked about these measures, albeit small, it is so important to them to get this relief quickly. I am really hoping that the passage of this bill would happen quickly so that we could get support to those Canadians who receive the goods and services tax credit. The doubling of this credit would make a big difference for them in the next six months. In fact, it would help provide relief for over 12 million Canadians, which is a lot of people who are really feeling the pinch.
I talked about what people are feeling and the pressures they are feeling. I do not know why the Liberals took so long to do this, but they did come on board. They also provided an excess profit tax on the banking industry, which is going to generate about $6 billion over five years. That is really important, because it could help provide relief for Canadians who are struggling the most. However, the Liberals left the oil and gas sector off the hook. They left their friends in the wireless sector off the hook. They left their friends in the grocery store chains that are making massive profits off the hook.
In the meantime, these inflationary prices are being shouldered by everyday Canadians while these corporations are making record profits. If the Liberals had applied that excess profit tax to those other sectors, we would have had a lot more money to help everyday Canadians who are really experiencing difficult times due to increased inflation. Also, the Liberals have not addressed tax havens. We know the PBO said that this is costing about $25 billion in tax revenue every year. CEOs get a tax advantage on their wins ahead of everyday Canadians. They get tax preferences.
When I look to the Conservatives, they have not brought any new ideas to help provide relief to Canadians. Great Britain applied an excess profit tax on the oil and gas companies of 25%. Why do the Conservatives in Canada not do that? It is because we know they are the gatekeepers for the big corporations. They are here to protect the profits of shareholders and the big corporations.
We hear them talking about the increase to CPP and the increase to EI, and they call them payroll taxes. I was self-employed for 15 years. I ran a chamber of commerce for five years that was runner-up for chamber of the year in British Columbia. These are not taxes. These are actually investments in the employees. It is retirement security. In fact, it was Conservative premiers who were calling on Ottawa to ensure that we increase CPP contributions so that people could retire with dignity. People cannot afford to retire with what they are getting right now. It is leaving people vulnerable. These are not taxes. This is about employers matching their employees' contributions so that they have more money to retire on. These are deferred wages. The increase in EI is to ensure that if people lose their job or there is a disruption in the workplace, they are protected. It should be all of our parties looking after the employees.
When we talk about what we are trying to do, this is just one suite of benefits. We are bringing forward a dental care plan and we are glad to see the Liberals get on board, but it is disappointing to see Conservatives not supporting getting dental coverage to people.
I keep hearing from Conservatives that 70% of people across Canada are covered by a dental care plan. Penny just wrote to me from my riding and said, “I have to save for two to three years to cover my share of the dental cost for upper and lower dentures. Too many seniors cannot afford dentures, let alone dental repairs like root canals or major work they need badly. They are at the age where their teeth start falling out and dentures are needed.” Penny needs help.
I raised this here in the House. My friend Ted, in Parksville, has lost his teeth. He has one tooth hanging out of his mouth. He cannot eat. He has fallen into depression, and he has lost 40 pounds. He is saying this plan is going to make a big difference for him. When I raised it in this House, a Conservative MP said that Ted needs to go back to work. That is what the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan alluded to. Ted is 77. It is not okay to send Ted back to work so he can put teeth in his mouth and eat. That is not okay.
Laura from Courtenay writes, “My daughter is in dire need of a root canal on her second last upper molar. She's in pain. The dentist has booked her in as soon as possible, August 16. However, for some reason, her medical needs are not covered under our health care and I'm not sure why this is as it's a medical emergency.” She talks about the threatening aspects of dental care. “Left untreated, dental abscesses can lead to serious complications, like a stroke, heart attack or life-threatening sepsis”, she says. “Why are my child's health care needs not being taken care of by our health care system?”
I think it is mighty rich when I hear Conservatives who have dental care coverage vote against a dental care plan. Is that not unbelievable? It is okay for them to have dental care coverage, but not for the most vulnerable.
Dermot, who lives in Qualicum Beach, says, “As my income is below the threshold you mentioned, I am retired and thus uninsured, this affects me. I know that you take pride in the role your party played in the introduction of medicare all those years ago.” New Democrats are proud because we need a health care system that is truly head to toe.
I am the critic for mental health and harm reduction for the federal NDP. We need mental health care. We need parity between physical and mental health. The Liberals promised $4.5 billion a year ago. They said they were going to work with the provinces so that people can get mental health care when they need it. People need mental health care, and they need it now. It is clogging up our health care system when people are in emergency rooms and actually need health care supports.
The federal Liberals have dropped the ball in terms of ensuring that we have a truly head-to-toe health care system. We are still waiting. We know they can do it. We saw them do it with child care. It took one year. They worked out a deal with the provinces. Why are they not doing that when it comes to mental health?
We need to help people when they need it. We are committed to that. Through COVID, it was increasing CERB to $2,000 and the wage subsidy from 10% to 75%. With the commercial rent assistance program, although it was boondoggled, New Democrats helped them fix it, as well as the paid sick leave, and now we are bringing in rent relief, dental care and the doubling of the GST tax credit. We are going to continue to show up with proposals to get help to Canadians now.
It takes forever to get the Liberals on board. There are many more things we can do. We know that the housing crisis is absolutely having a massive impact. The Conservatives love to throw mud at the Liberals in the doubling of house prices, but, guess what, on their watch, under Stephen Harper, housing prices doubled, too. They have gone up fourfold under these consecutive governments, making housing out of reach. We need non-market housing for people. Saying that the private sector is going to solve this problem is unrealistic. It has not happened anywhere in the world.
I am calling on all of us to work together to bring forward solutions and for members to work with us. New Democrats are here to work with them. We are glad to see all members in this House supporting this legislation. This is going to provide relief to 12 million Canadians. We can do more, we want to do more and we look forward to working with members.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be splitting my time with the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.
For my first speech after the summer break, I would have liked to talk about something a bit more divisive, but, unfortunately, Bill C-30 is fairly uncontroversial. It goes without saying that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour, since it is a suggestion that was set out in all of our budget expectations. I hope that by saying this, I can avoid getting questions from the member for Winnipeg North in 10 minutes' time, since, at the end of the day, most of us agree on it.
The one small criticism I have for the Liberal Party is that the government was slow to act. As members will recall, the Deputy Prime Minister stood in front of the Empire Club in Toronto and simply repeated measures that were in the budget. The government could have taken inflation seriously long before now and taken quicker action. That was a little digression for the member for Winnipeg North. Now he will perhaps have something to say later.
I would like to quickly come back to inflation. In July, prices for goods and services in Canada rose by 7.6%. August brought a slight decrease, with inflation down to 7%. I am bringing this up again because I want to point out that this dip in inflation was primarily the result of a sharp drop in gasoline prices. That is why inflation slowed down.
Some of you may have seen, as I did, short videos of the Conservative leader constantly talking about people who are trying to buy groceries and their experiences. I understand where they are coming from, and I agree with the Conservative leader. Consumer prices have skyrocketed. Prices at bakeries have risen 15% in the last month. That is a substantial increase. It is the same for fresh fruit, with prices having risen by 13.2% compared to a year ago.
This is a developing phenomenon and we need to analyze it. Inflation is a complex economic situation. It will soon be clear where I am going with this. I have found a divisive element in something that is usually undisputed.
It is a complex economic situation. I think we need to be careful how we respond to inflation. We have to be careful because the type of inflation we are seeing right now is not necessarily one we have seen before. In the past, it was a demand-side issue. What we are seeing now is an issue on the supply side as pressures from labour costs and energy costs are creating a supply crisis that is causing this inflation.
Members will agree that there is no easy solution, especially when we take into consideration other causes that are completely out of our control, such as the war in Ukraine and global energy problems. It goes without saying that there is no easy solution. Why do I say that?
I am not an economist and I do not know much about the mechanics of macroeconomics and microeconomics, but I am very familiar with political dynamics. As such, I can talk about what we should not do to fight inflation. In my opinion, what we should not do to fight inflation is use the inflationary tensions we are currently seeing to advance a political agenda; to me that comes back to playing partisan politics on the backs of the most vulnerable. I do not believe that populist speeches that use the catchphrase “have more in their pockets” are appropriate for fighting inflation. Such speeches might unite the discontented, but they do little to offer solutions to those on the losing side of our economic system.
All this kind of populism does is distort things by offering piecemeal solutions, such as reducing the gas tax. In my opinion, over the past few months, we have been seeing a Conservative brand of populism stand up for the most vulnerable members of our society. I am not trying to pick a fight, but the Conservative Party does not exactly have a history of standing up for people disadvantaged by the economic system. Let me explain why I interpret the new Conservative leader's messaging as a kind of populism.
Here is a brief definition of populism.
The first thing to understand about populism is that many describe it as a divisive political strategy used to frame issues in black and white and pit people against one another. I have been listening to my Conservative colleagues for a while, and that seems to be their approach. How do they drive people apart? My Conservative colleagues say the only way to rein in inflation is to get rid of the carbon tax. That is an overly simplistic solution. I can see that others agree.
The second thing to understand about populism is that some individuals have been giving speeches and displaying behaviour employing a certain rhetoric that combines utopianism and demagoguery, pandering to the people and pitting them against the ruling elite. I am thinking of the member for Carleton's rhetoric and a few clips I saw online in which he talks about a mother having to water down milk because she can no longer afford to feed her family. The member for Carleton said that the central bank is to blame for this situation. The Conservatives want someone to blame for inflation, so they have chosen the head of the central bank and the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister may have caused some harm, but the Conservatives are making the complex economic problem of inflation into a wedge issue.
The third thing to understand about populism is that it condemns institutions that, in the populist view, do not pay enough attention to people's aspirations. It portrays political opponents as elites with little regard for the ideas of the people and popular common sense. We also heard this sort of rhetoric from the leader of the official opposition when he talked about the Prime Minister being out of touch and about the head of the central bank.
I personally do not believe that this Conservative populism offers any proposals or solutions to fight inflation. Rather, I believe that it allows the Conservative Party to rally malcontents, those people on the losing end of our current economic system, to their banner without offering them any solutions. I will explain why I believe that the Conservative Party is not offering solutions.
What does the Conservatives' traditional economic rhetoric sound like? I have always seen it as being similar to the Washington consensus, which emerged from the liberal ideology espoused by the Chicago school of economics. What is this rhetoric? I have been here since 2019 and have frequently seen the member for Carleton champion the laissez-faire approach. He has done so on many occasions. What is the Chicago school's Washington consensus all about? It advocates the systematic liberalization of markets and interest rates. That is strangely similar to the proposals frequently put forward by the Conservative member for the full privatization of businesses and the deregulation of markets. It sounds a lot like the Conservatives' rhetoric. In particular, there is an emphasis on heavy budget cuts, especially by reducing public spending. We heard this often, even during the pandemic.
That is the Conservative Party's rhetoric. Does it structure government action in such a way as to help the most disadvantaged? I seriously doubt it.
Two very interesting books by Joseph Stiglitz tell us the complete opposite. By implementing such measures, in line with free-market liberalism—
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Madam Speaker, normally I try to engage in French, but I want to make sure my point is very clear.
I was interested in the member's conversation around supply-side economics. Of course the inflationary period we are seeing right now is somewhat unique. The Bank of Canada is increasing its benchmark borrowing rate to try to bring down demand.
Does he have certain concerns on the monetary policy side such that if this is a supply-side economic issue that is driving inflation, and notwithstanding the Bank of Canada is trying to do its job to bring down demand, it may prove difficult to actually quell inflation because this is a supply-side economic issue?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Kings—Hants for his speech, in which he touched on housing, which is an important issue. There is no denying that, with the ongoing inflationary crisis, this is one budget category that has grown even more than most.
Still, I am fascinated by the Liberal government's lack of long-term vision and its propensity for sending out cheques as a form of one-time support.
As the Bloc Québécois critic for seniors, I have seniors getting in touch with me to say they cannot afford enough to eat. They see inflation driving grocery prices higher and higher. Does my colleague from Kings—Hants really think that a one-time cheque for $500 will help seniors? Would it not be better to consider a long-term solution such as increasing old age security significantly and permanently? I would like my colleague to comment on that, because I honestly do not think that $500 will do much for seniors.
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear an hon. member on that side of the House acknowledge that inflation is indeed a global problem and also acknowledge that Canada fares much better than many of our peer countries around the world.
Inflation obviously is a challenging problem and the inflationary pressures that we see today are not just the result of pandemic relief spending, which I know the Conservatives continually purport in the House, falsely. I really believe that Canada has been set up for success. That is why we have seen the economic growth and the job recovery rate. In comparison to our peers, we are faring much better in terms of job recovery and growth. We really have set ourselves up to come out of the dip in our economy from the pandemic. We have seen a strong V-shaped recovery. Now we have to work on labour challenges, supply chain disruptions, etc.
I do not believe that these new affordability measures will increase inflation.
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