The following is a transcript of the Hon. Pierre Poilievre’s remarks from September 25th, 2025. These remarks have been edited for clarity. Check against delivery.
Ce qui suit est la transcription de l’allocution prononcée par l’honorable Pierre Poilievre le 25 septembre 2025. Ces remarques ont été modifiées pour plus de clarté. Seules les paroles prononcées font foi.
September 25, 2025 / 25 septembre 2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE / POUR DIFFUSION IMMÉDIATE
Ottawa, ON – Notre but en tant qu’Opposition officielle et futur gouvernement, c’est d’augmenter le pouvoir d’achat en rendant la nourriture et le logement plus abordables, d’avoir des rues sécuritaires en incarcérant les criminels que les libéraux ont libéré. En sécurisant nos frontières, en ramenant le contrôle sur notre système d’immigration et en transformant notre pays en un pays autonome de façon économique.
Our goals, Mr. Speaker, are very clear: stronger take-home pay with affordable food at home, safer streets by locking up the criminals that Liberals turned loose, secure borders by fixing the broken Liberal immigration system and a self-reliant Canada by unlocking the power of our resources industry and entrepreneurs.
But first among all these is that we must be able to feed our people. Conservatives believe that everyone – our families, our seniors, our workers – deserve nutritious, delicious, affordable food on their tables. Meat and potatoes night after night, not as a once-in-a-while treat. They shouldn’t feel stress and anxiety as they walk down grocery aisles.
In fact, they should be looking at the items that they can’t wait to bring home and transform into the next delicious family meal, rather than looking at the price tag and wondering whether it will empty their bank accounts. They should have full fridges, full stomachs, and full bank accounts all at the same time.
That used to be what we took for granted in Canada. But after 10 years of Liberal inflation, the cost of food is up over 40 per cent. In fact, since this particular Prime Minister took office, promising that he could be judged by the price of food, food prices have been rising 50 per cent faster in Canada than in the United States.
The Daily Bread Food Bank says this year, Toronto alone will have 4 million visits to the food bank. That’s double what it was two years ago, meaning worse than it was under Justin Trudeau. The average family of four is expected to spend almost $17,000 on food this year. That’s up well over $800 over the previous year.
This at a time when wages are flat and joblessness is skyrocketing. A hundred thousand more people lost their jobs this summer under this Prime Minister’s high tax, low growth policy, which has given us the fastest shrinking economy in the G7, far worse than I stated it.
Meanwhile, those jobless people are walking down grocery aisles seeing that beef is up 33 per cent, canned soup 26 per cent, grapes 24 per cent, roasted and ground coffee 22 per cent, beef stewing cuts up 22 per cent. Food costs should be dropping in this country because the amount of fertilizer, fuel, water, and labour that goes into producing food has dropped dramatically.
The average dairy cow can produce four times as much milk as 50 years ago, and the average acre can produce four times as much corn. So all of the costs of producing food are dropping, but the price of buying food is going up. What explains the difference? Part of it is the cost of government, which again, is the biggest cost contributor, and it has been rising under this Liberal government.
This Prime Minister has three main grocery taxes, all of which he has been raising. First, the industrial carbon tax on fertilizer and on farm equipment. That tax increases the cost right up through the food chain, a tax that this Prime Minister intends to more than triple if he stays in power until 2030.
Then there’s the fuel standard tax. This is a 17 cent a liter tax that the government is imposing that will apply on diesel and on gasoline, replacing the carbon tax fuel charge that was in place up until I forced the government to remove it just a few months ago. But I warned that this government would simply bring in a new carbon tax if given the chance, and that is exactly what they’re doing. That will, of course, raise the cost.
This one is worse though, because unlike the previous fuel charge, which exempted tractors, combines, and other on-farm use, this will apply on the fuel that goes right into the combine, the seeder, the planter, the tractor on the farm, so it will be even worse for food prices than the previous tax.
And then there’s the inflation tax itself – the most immoral, destructive tax there is, the sneakiest tax. The inflation tax happens when the government prints money to pay its bills, ultimately bidding up the cost of everything Canadians buy. If you have an economy with 10 loaves of bread and $10, it’s a buck a loaf. If you double the number of dollars to 20, but you still only have 10 loaves of bread, each bread purchase goes up by a hundred percent. It doubles in price, and that is what we call the inflation tax.
This Prime Minister is familiar with it because, of course, he caused the inflation and housing crisis in Great Britain, where he was a disastrous and now totally despised Bank of England governor. He will hopefully be apologizing to the British people for the economic hell he left behind in that role, but instead, he’s bringing that hell here to Canada.
Today, we learned that this Prime Minister is even more expensive than Justin Trudeau. Who would’ve thought it possible? The deficit for this year will be, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, two-thirds higher than the one that Trudeau left behind. Over the next five years, the deficit will add up to $314 billion, more than double the deficits that Trudeau was expected to add over that period of time.
In other words, he’s borrowing at twice the rate of Justin Trudeau. He’s more expensive, and of course, much of that money will be printed. Already, the Bank of Canada is signalling that it is, again, doing away with its main mandate, which is to fight inflation.
They’ve taken that mandate off of the main webpage where they used to describe their mission as low and stable inflation, and they’ve replaced it with a grand pronouncement that they’re not just any bank, they are the Central Bank. What they really mean is that they’re going back to printing money to pay for a Prime Minister who cannot control himself.
Every dollar this Liberal Prime Minister spends comes out of the pockets of Canadians in direct taxes or inflation taxes. We know that inflation is very good for Brookfield because the CEO of that company said so. He said that his company profits from inflation, so the Prime Minister will get richer as he makes Canadians poorer and hungrier through his inflation tax.
Our goal on this side of the house is exactly the opposite.
C’est la raison pour laquelle nous proposons d’éliminer les taxes sur l’épicerie. Nous pensons qu’on peut réduire le coût de l’épicerie en éliminant la taxe carbone industrielle qui augmente le coût des engrais et des équipements pour les fermiers. Éliminons la taxe carbone sur le diesel et l’essence pour permettre de produire et transporter la nourriture plus efficacement. Et finalement, éliminons la taxe inflationniste en réduisant les déficits inflationnistes.
Monsieur le Président, il faut couper la bureaucratie, les consultants, le BS corporatif, l’aide à l’étranger et l’argent pour les faux réfugiés pour réduire le déficit et réduire le coût de la vie. On ne veut pas un déficit financier, ni un déficit nutritionnel pour les Canadiens.
Monsieur le Président, nous voulons un pays où tous les Canadiens qui travaillent fort, puissent avoir de la nourriture délicieuse et abordable pour unir leur famille avec une qualité de vie extraordinaire. C’est possible dans notre pays qui est béni avec des avantages géographiques, démographiques et économiques extraordinaires. On peut avoir un bel avenir si nous prenons les bonnes décisions. Commençons avec l’élimination des taxes sur l’épicerie.
Today, we call on the government to stop taxing food. Allow Canadians to have nutritious, delicious food. Make this a country where anyone who’s worked hard can enjoy meat and potatoes on their table, in a beautiful house that they own on a safe street with a wonderful Canadian flag hanging off the front porch. Thank you.