QUESTION PERIOD — Finance
Cost of Living
September 26, 2024
Government leader, this time last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held a press conference in which he promised that grocery prices would come down by Thanksgiving.
Minister Champagne held a press conference and told Canadians to use coupons to buy groceries if they weren’t doing that already.
Here we are, leader, approaching another Thanksgiving. Canadians still cannot afford to feed themselves. Earlier this month, we learned a million people in Ontario used a food bank in the last year. This is a 25% increase in just one year. Leader, Canadians are skipping meals, eating less healthy foods and relying on food banks.
Don’t you agree, leader, that we need a carbon-tax election? Shouldn’t they have a chance to vote out this incompetent NDP‑Liberal government and axe the tax?
The short answer is no.
The government continues to have the confidence of Parliament; for so long as it does, it will continue to do what Canadians expect it to do, which is to apply itself, in a serious way, to serious solutions to the serious problems.
You give me so many opportunities to comment.
Go ahead. You have one minute.
I’m going to use the one minute.
Increasingly, Canadians have become aware that all that is being offered — and certainly being amplified in this chamber — are empty slogans, focus-group-driven slogans time and again. It is thin gruel for Canadians who need better answers from their government. They are getting them from this —
In fact, the government does not have the confidence of Parliament. Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet are running this government. They are the ones in charge, not Justin Trudeau.
Yesterday, the chief economist for the Bank of Montreal, BMO, said inflation is lower; prices are not. He used the example of bread, the price of which has jumped dramatically over the last couple years and hasn’t come down.
With that in mind, leader, can you tell us how much your government spent on catering?
The Government of Canada continues to work with partners in the provinces, territories and the private sector to address the challenges that Canadians are still facing. It is very good news, despite the predictions you made in this chamber, that inflation has come down regularly, as the government said it would, based upon its prudent fiscal and financial planning and practices.
