Skyrocketing inflation and the cost-of-living crisis is impacting families from across Canada. Food is getting more expensive. Gas and home heating are costing more. Canadians with mortgages have seen a sharp increase in their payments, while those looking to buy a house for the first time see the dream of homeownership slip out of reach.
Canadians have been forced to contend with eight consecutive outsized interest-rate hikes.
Yet, after eight years, the Prime Minister has chosen to continue with his high tax and spending agenda. These policies have helped to create a cost-of-living crisis that is hurting the hard-working people of this country.
This government’s decision to continue increasing taxes means workers are punished for working and take home even less of their paycheques.
Just this year, payroll taxes on workers and small businesses were raised. Workers making above $66,600 will be forced to pay an extra $305.00 out of their pockets when they need it most.
Justin Trudeau’s grocery rebate just gives money back to Canadians that he already clawed away from them with his tax increases. It won’t solve the cost-of-living crisis driving many struggling Canadians already over the edge.
To add insult to injury, Liberals are still raising taxes on restaurants and breweries, already struggling to survive by increasing the excise tax on beer, wine and spirits by 2%.
The federal carbon tax increased to 14 cents per litre of gas on April 1, 2023.
So where is all this money going?
Canada’s federal debt for the 2023-24 fiscal year is projected to reach $1.22 trillion. That is nearly $81,000 per household in Canada.
The cost of servicing Canada’s enormous debt continues to grow. The cost to service Canada’s debt this year (2023-2024) is projected to be $43.9 billion. This is nearly double the costs in 2021-2022, when debt servicing costs were $24.5 billion.
What accounts for this? Not slower-than-expected economic growth. The government’s revenues are off only slightly from the levels projected in the fall and remain considerably higher than were projected last year at this time: more than $25 billion a year higher, on average, over the forecast period. So, the problem is … spending.
Whether it is $1.2 billion to the Canadian Space Agency to develop a “lunar utility vehicle”, or the $54 million to help the government recover fraudulent overpayments, that shouldn’t have been made in the first place, or COVID-19 emergency benefits, the Minister of Finance has continued her wasteful spending streak.
Canadians are living in desperation, skipping meals, visiting food banks in record numbers, living in their parent's basements, unable to drive to work, falling into depression, and even considering suicide because they cannot afford the pressure and the bills that this Prime Minister has imposed after eight long years. This budget makes all of those pressures, all of those pains, and all those costs even worse.
My conservative colleagues and I will continue to fight to bring back the common sense of common people to Ottawa.
Marty Morantz is MP for Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley.
