Ottawa, ON – Today, the Hon. Pierre Poilievre, Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and the Conservative Party of Canada, sent the following letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney, calling on him to cut wasteful spending by bringing down deficits, inflation and taxes in the upcoming budget:
Prime Minister,
Canadians cannot afford you.
You have helped drive up costs on the basics of living that people just cannot pay. You promised affordability. Yet everything is more expensive since you took office. While you cannot control things outside Canada, your decisions at home have only made things worse.
You doubled the deficit. Outside COVID, you have the biggest deficit ever and the highest spending as a share of GDP since the 1990s debt crisis. Debt interest is now the single fastest-growing government expense.
You promised to spend less, yet you are spending more on almost everything. Those costs are passed on to Canadians in higher inflation and interest, as your spending bids up goods and your borrowing bids up rates.
Meanwhile, you have increased the Liberal fuel standard tax. According to the Nova Scotia Energy Board, it is adding 15 cents a litre, which then raises the cost of everything else, with most of the money going to purchase American biofuels.
A tax on gas during a cost-of-living crisis is bad enough. Sending the money to the U.S. during a tariff dispute adds insult to injury.
While you tell families that “affordability is the best it’s been over a decade,” inflation rose again to 3.1 per cent in September. Higher prices pushed more Canadians to food banks, with 2.35 million food bank visits in a single month – the highest in Canadian history. That’s up 9 per cent compared to just last year and an increase of 117 per cent since 2019.
Behind every one of these visits is a real person. One-third of those visiting food banks are now children, and 22 per cent say that low or delayed wages have forced them to rely on food banks, more than double last year.
The pressure has become so severe that more than half of food banks were forced to give out less food than usual and 21 per cent ran out of food entirely before everyone in need could be served.
When you say that affordability is the best it has been in a decade, you are out of touch; your costs are out of control, and Canadians are out of money.
Today, I am writing to demand you cut wasteful spending to bring down deficits, inflation and taxes, so Canadians can afford to eat, heat and house themselves.
That’s why we are calling on you to:
- Cut Wasteful, Inflationary Spending
Reducing the cost of government will reduce the cost of living. So, let’s get specific: cut bureaucracy, consultants, wasteful foreign aid like gender-just rice in Vietnam, deluxe taxpayer-funded benefits for fake asylum claimants, corporate handouts and cancel the $150 billion ALTO rail boondoggle. Cancelling this waste will save Canadians almost $200 billion over the coming years. - Keep Your Promised Debt Anchors
You promised to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio in the last election. You then changed your anchor to reduce “deficit-to-GDP” in the last budget. You must do both, just like you promised.
To be clear, we think that these are necessary but insufficient anchors. You should reduce the deficit until the budget is balanced. But you have made that unrealistic until there is a change in government.
So, the bare minimum is that you keep your word. Reduce the debt and the deficit as a share of our economy. - Save Canadians on Gas, Groceries and Everything Else
If a Canadian bought it, a trucker brought it. By eliminating all federal taxes on diesel until Canada Day, we can save Canadians money whether they’re buying groceries or toys for Christmas. Suspend the GST on fuel until summer and permanently scrap the Fuel Standard Tax, which the Nova Scotia Energy Board says adds more than 15 cents to the price of each litre of gas.
Your budget should save Canadians money, save jobs and put Canada first.
Canadians have held up their end of the bargain. They work hard, follow the rules and love their country. That should earn them an affordable life.
Prime Minister, it is time for your government to do the same.
Restore that promise. Save Canadians money.