Conservative Leader Candice Bergen at the ethnocultural press conference on June 13, 2022. (screen shot)
By NTDTV Staff
Conservative interim leader Candice Bergen held an online ethnocultural press conference in the evening of June 13, 2022. It was mostly questions and answers (Q/A). The particular Q/A on the topic of inflation and high cost of living facing Canadians is printed in the following:
Question: Canadians are suffering from soaring prices in every aspect of their lives, and the liberal government so far has done very little to alleviate it. What would a conservative government do to ease the cost of living pressure?
Tory Leader Candice Bergen:
That’s what everybody is talking about. I can tell you everywhere I go right now, everyone is talking about the price of gas, and then the price of groceries. There are people who are making $80,000, $90,000 a year, and that’s not a bad living, and they’re almost in a panic – how are they going to pay their bills?
I’m going to tell you what happened. We have to go back six years or seven years to when the Liberals took government.
Things were good at that time. You might remember in 2015, Trudeau said he would have just a very small deficit. I think he said ten billion, and that immediately ballooned in good times to 50 billion, and it went up and up and up.
When things were not good, the cover wasn’t there.
I will tell you that conservatives believe in responsible fiscal policy. When times were good, you save. You pay down your debt; you pay down the deficit; you put money away for a rainy day; at the same time you make sure that the country has a climate and atmosphere that is open for business. We want to attract investment; we want jobs to be created; we want to see our country flourish.
The liberals did the exact opposite. They introduced bills that shutdown investment, that shutdown jobs in our oil and gas sector, and shutdown manufacturing, and added taxes. They spent a lot. They taxed a lot. They shut down investment, then COVID hit the world.
We had the repercussions. We had to spend money to help Canadians. Conservatives believe in that.
But they spent after spending when times were good. You know the scenario; you have an understanding of monetary policy and the budgets don’t balance themselves.
Then add the war in Ukraine and the price of gas going through the roof.
So you have this recipe of a country that has been mismanaged over the last 6 years. When times are tough, we don’t have the resilience to get through it. The massive spending has added to inflation. This is what the problem has been.
We would have governed differently. We would not be in this situation we are in.
What conservatives have suggested, especially over the last 6 months are some practical things to help Canadians.
Canadians say, well, what would you do right now?
We would cut, as some of the provinces are doing. We would absolutely slash the GST on gas and fuel. We would slash the carbon tax right off the bat. That would save Canadians at the pumps right away.
We would end the tariffs on fertilizer that was purchased before March 2nd. That would have a huge impact on the cost of food. Food security and food prices is a huge issue.
And then we would absolutely end all the mandates right away. We have to end all the restrictions and get our economy, our tourism sector, stop any barrier from people coming to Canada, from traveling across the country, from getting back to normal.
Those are three things that we’ve been suggesting over and over. We put motions and bills on the floor of the house of commons.
And we’ve said that it seems like Trudeau, when he says no to us, he thinks he’s hurting us politically. He says no, just because it’s our idea. but evidence shows that he’s hurting you, he’s hurting Canadians. So we’re going to keep asking, but ultimately, we want to see a change. We want to see taxes reduced. We’re going to need a change in government. Thank you.