Conservatives demand Liberals present an affordable budget for an affordable Canada.

Ottawa, ON – Today, the Hon. Pierre Poilievre, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and the Official Opposition, sent a letter to Prime Minister Carney calling on the Liberal government to use their long-overdue budget to cut taxes and make life more affordable for Canadians:

Dear Prime Minister,

People cannot afford life in Canada after ten years of Liberal government. Under your leadership, we have become a country of empty bank accounts, empty fridges and empty stomachs. 

You need to reverse course and join with Conservatives to restore Canada’s promise that hard work is rewarded, food and homes are affordable, streets are safe and our economy is self-reliant. We will work with anyone from any party to achieve that goal. So please feel free to steal our ideas — in action, not just talk.

The best ideas grow out of first principles. Every dollar your government spends comes out of the pockets of Canadians in higher taxes and inflation. The more you spend, the more things cost. The cost of your government is driving up the cost of living. 

It is no coincidence that as the Liberal government doubled the debt, housing costs and food bank lineups doubled as well. Massive money-printing deficits bid up the cost of everything and gave Canada the worst inflation in 40 years. That is the Liberal inflation tax. 

You took office seven months ago promising to be different. So, let us measure your promises by your results: 

You promised to spend less and invest more. Since you took office, you are spending more (with deficit spending doubled) and investing less ($47.6 billion of net investment has fled). 

You promised to double homebuilding. Now, your housing agency says homebuilding will drop 13% over the next three years.

You promised Canadians could judge you by the costs at the grocery store. The verdict is in: Canadian food inflation is nearly double the Bank of Canada’s target and food prices have been rising 48% faster in Canada than in the U.S. since you became PM. There are over two million visits by Canadians to food banks every month and Daily Bread Toronto estimates an astonishing 4 million visits in the Greater Toronto Area alone this year, a number that has nearly doubled since 2023, proving the problem is worsening under your leadership.

You promised the fastest-growing economy in the G7 and delivered the fastest-shrinking economy in the G7. In fact, this chart shows that out of the 48 countries tracked by the OECD, Canada is expected to rank second worst for per capita growth from 2025 to 2030.

You have kept almost all of Justin Trudeau’s economic policies. Now you are repeating his promises. You claim that big deficits are investments. That is exactly the alchemy Trudeau promised: that deficits would spark investment and growth. 

The result was the worst per-capita growth in the G7 and a more than 10% drop in investment per worker. Dressing up these same promises with new slogans as you introduce the 10th consecutive Liberal budget deficit will not change the result: More costs. More debt. More of the same.

Your own Parliamentary Budget Officer says the interest on the federal debt will cost $55.3 billion this year. This means that before a single dollar goes to healthcare, housing, or other services, the average household will pay more than $3,300 in taxes this year just to cover interest on your federal debt.

We demand an affordable budget for an affordable Canada. Specifically:

  1. Scrap hidden taxes on food. You have at least four hidden food taxes that price people out of groceries: the industrial carbon tax on fertilizer and farm equipment, your 17-cent/litre fuel standard carbon tax on gas and diesel, your billion-dollar food packaging tax and your inflation tax.
  2. Cut taxes on work, homebuilding, investment and energy, so life costs less and our workers make more. That means reducing income tax, capital gains tax, the industrial carbon tax and homebuilding taxes. 
  3. Stop the inflation tax: Keep the deficit under the $42 billion that the previous Prime Minister left behind, by unlocking more resource development and revenue, and cutting wasteful spending on bureaucracy, consultants, corporate welfare, foreign aid and payouts to false refugee claimants. 

Canadians have had enough of your buzzwords and broken promises. Every Liberal budget ends the same way — higher prices, lower paycheques and bigger bills. After a decade of reckless Liberal spending and record debt, our people are paying the price. We don’t need another lecture from the ones who caused the crisis. We need results that put Canadians first.