My question is for the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Just like every other Ontarian across the province, rural residents are feeling the financial pressures created by the federal carbon tax. They experience unique challenges as they have to travel farther and for longer to go anywhere. They face higher costs across the board compared to urban regions.

Speaker, in my riding alone, in Apsley, when Sayers Foods burned, people had to travel 40, 50 kilometres to get groceries in Lakefield, Buckhorn or Bancroft because there was no other option in Apsley. Unfortunately, these are the challenges that Bonnie Crombie’s Liberals and their federal buddies can’t and won’t understand.

Our government understands that scrapping the carbon tax is the right thing to do for Ontarians who are struggling, and we’ll continue to call on the federal government to end this tax. Speaker, can the minister please explain how the carbon tax disproportionately affects rural Ontarians and their quality of life?

I appreciate the question from the member from Peterborough, because he lives it every day, as do I in my rural riding.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s from fuel to food—the cost for rural life is going through the roof because unfortunately Bonnie Crombie and Justin Trudeau have never met a tax they didn’t like. It’s affecting everything in rural Ontario, from getting to work to getting our students to school on our rural school bus transitways, and even down to driving seniors to their daycare programs, through to Meals on Wheels. This horrible Liberal carbon tax is causing the cost of everything to go through the roof, and therefore it’s jeopardizing the pillars of community that we need in rural Ontario.

Ladies and gentlemen, we all need to stand together and implore all Liberals, backed up by the NDP, to scrap the tax.