OTTAWA - Souris-Moose Mountain MP Robert Kitchen is panning the federal budget that was handed down by the federal Liberals.
Once again, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals refused to make Canada work for the people who have done the work, he said.
“The 2023 federal budget is an anti-worker, tax-hiking, inflationary budget that only makes life more expensive for Canadians who are trying to make ends meet,” he said.
In just eight years, Kitchen said Trudeau has added more federal debt than all previous prime ministers combined. The debt is projected to reach $1.22 trillion in 2023-24, Kitchen said, or nearly $81,000 per household.
“The federal deficit for 2022-23 is now up to $43 billion with no path to balance in future projections, despite Trudeau’s promises to control his inflationary spending,” he said.
On April 1, Kitchen said the carbon tax will rise to 14 cents per litre, costing the average family between $402 and $847 in 2023, even after rebates. By 2030, the Liberal carbon taxes could add 50 cents per litre to the price of gasoline, which will force some to choose between putting gas in their car or food on the table, Kitchen said.
Under Trudeau, the minimum down payment needed to buy a house has doubled from $22,000 to $45,000 across Canada, Kitchen said, and the average mortgage and rent payments have nearly doubled as well.
The budget also contained nothing for the thousands of coal miners and energy workers whose livelihoods are in limbo following the Liberals’ “just Transition’, he said, with zero references to the government’s Sustainable Jobs Plan.
“Instead of providing some much-needed certainty for the future, Trudeau continues to kick the can down the road while workers are forced to wait for the help that Liberals have been promising since 2018,” Kitchen said.
Farmers and ranchers were also largely ignored in this budget, the MP said, with virtually nothing for those who produce the food that feeds Canada and the world. With global food security set to become a major issue, Kitchen said the Liberals have missed yet another opportunity to support those who work tirelessly to put food on our tables.
Conservatives demanded that the document take action to lower taxes for workers and end the inflationary deficits that are driving up the cost of goods, but all Trudeau has delivered for Canadians is more debt, more inflation, and more costs on the backs of the hard-working and beleaguered people of this country.
