QUESTION PERIOD — Finance
Food Security
December 5, 2023
Senator Gold, Food Banks Canada statistics show a staggering 79% increase in visits in March of this year compared to 2019. A recent Feed Ontario report showed that more than 800,000 Ontarians made 5.9 million visits to food banks between April 2022 and April 2023. That is an increase of 38%, the largest single-year increase ever recorded in that province for food banks. In Toronto, more than 2.5 million food bank visits were recorded in that same one-year period.
Senator Gold, that doesn’t represent a need within the community; that represents almost an entire community dependent upon the support of food banks for its most basic needs. A further disheartening reality, Senator Gold, is that more than one in six visitors report being employed, underscoring that having a job no longer guarantees food on the table in Canada.
How can the Trudeau government look into the eyes of Canadians and tell them that they are doing a good job and are proud of their accomplishments when these Canadians do not even know where they will get their next meal from?
Thank you for your question, senator. Canadians are indeed facing real challenges with rising food prices, even as inflation comes down. It does not make it any easier for too many families, too many individuals to afford the nutrition and the food that they and their families deserve as Canadians.
It is the case that the federal government, along with provincial and municipal governments and the private sector, are working hand in hand to help Canadians get through these difficult times.
This is not a time, either, for patting oneself on the back when so many Canadians are suffering, nor is it the time, frankly, to mislead Canadians as to the causes of this complex global phenomenon that is facing all of us, including Canadians.
This complex problem is reaching historic levels, and your government clearly has no idea how to handle it. There is no denying that your government’s carbon tax makes everything more expensive, Senator Gold. The fact that you carved out an exemption to that tax for a very slim margin of Canadians in order to give them some relief proves that. It torpedoes your own message, Senator Gold.
Why not do the right thing — which we think is a simple thing — and axe the tax for all Canadians who are buckling under the weight of Justin Trudeau’s fiscal mismanagement? Axe the tax once and for all.
I am not surprised that you return to the same rather tired talking points once again to fundamentally misrepresent, as any economist or businessperson would know, what the marginal increase in the cost of food is for the tax on pollution. Again, it does not do a service or an honour to the Canadians who are struggling with these issues to mislead them. I am using that term factually, although I am sure that is not your intention. Nonetheless, it is the case that it fundamentally misrepresents the complexity and diminishes the importance of this issue.
