Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to the motion. I appreciate the concern that is underlying it.

Like a lot of members on both sides of the House, I tend to do grocery shopping with or for my family on weekends when the House is sitting. Recently I shopped at the No Frills in Bloor West Village at the corner of Bloor and Runnymede on Saturday night, and I met some of my constituents there who were doing their shopping. In the case of our family, we also do a lot of shopping at Maple Produce for fruit and vegetables and the Hot Oven Bakery on Roncesvalles Avenue.

Before I get into the substance of the debate, I think it is important to show appreciation for all people in our community, in our country, including the member for Middlesex—London, who are involved in the food sector, whether it is retailers large or small, people who are bringing their wares to farmers' markets, people who grow and supply the food, or people who work on the packaging of the food, whether those workers are unionized or non-unionized. It is a big ecosystem and something of which Canadians are rightly proud. It is also an export market for us.

I want to give thanks for the work that has been done in the House both by the current government and by our predecessors on the industry committee, on which I sit, to really start to look at and tackle the issue. Some of the measures have been mentioned already. My colleague, the deputy government House leader, mentioned the GST holiday. The industry committee in its previous incarnation did a lot of work on competition in the grocery sector. Thanks to its work and the work of the previous industry minister, we now have a grocery code of conduct and some other measures that are coming to help address some of the issues that are talked about in the motion.

It is important to realize what has been done, including the very first actions that the government took. On day one, the government cancelled the consumer carbon tax, and I want to situate the issue in the larger set of circumstances around affordability in this country. The motion talks about food prices, although there seems to be a bit of confusion in the sense that, and I am just getting ahead of some of what I am going to say, the answer in the motion appears to be to abandon our climate commitments, which I do not think is advisable. I think we can do both.

Let us situate this in the broader context of affordability. On day one, there was the cancellation of the consumer carbon tax. It was an important measure and something that affected and benefited folks in every one of our ridings. Definitely in Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, the impact was immediate and benefited our constituents.

There was the lowering of income tax, which I am glad to see there was some support from the other side of the aisle. It had an immediate effect on July 1. We moved very quickly. There were different ways to design it. We could have cut a cheque and said, “Here you go” and had a very expensive process to get money back to people, but we did it in the most efficient way possible, which was lowering income tax rates for people in the lowest income tax bracket, saving them up to $840 a year by next year. It has a real impact on the pocketbook of our constituents.

Additionally, I have the benefit of sitting beside my colleague, the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of industry, who has some facts I know he will be wanting to share later. Because of lowering inflation in some circumstances, the overall economic circumstances around the consumer price index and a variety of other circumstances, the Bank of Canada was able to make its move to lower interest rates most recently.

This is some of the broader context, and there are probably some areas of agreement on what I have said with respect to the issues. However, a lot more has happened since the consumer carbon tax cancellation and the income tax cut, and I will go through a few of the measures, because when we add them up, they add up to a lot of support for Canadians.

There are the new EI supports. In the commercial war that we are in with the United States, we have to support our workers in a more diligent way, especially in affected sectors, and so we have some new employment insurance supports. We also have the ongoing and increased support with the Canada child benefit, one of the signature initiatives of the former government. It is something I wish we could get more support on from the other side of the aisle, from which we continue to hear nothing about the benefits of the Canada child benefit. However, in my riding, I am constantly hearing from constituents about the benefits of the program.

The Canada child care program and the benefits that accrue to families and the real, meaningful cost of living change that has resulted have changed the lives of families. I was canvassing in the Bloor West Village area of Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park over the weekend. I spoke to some constituents on Armadale Avenue. When I run into families with kids under the age of 12 in my riding, there is not a family that that says this initiative has not changed lives. This initiative has changed lives. I want to pay tribute to the late Ken Dryden and our colleague in this House, Chrystia Freeland—

Karim Bardeesy

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