MPs vow action on grocery and housing prices, carbon tax as 2024 House sitting begins
CTV
Members of Parliament returned to Ottawa on Monday vowing action on Canadians' pressing concerns around grocery and housing costs, as conversation about the carbon tax bubbled up when the House of Commons opened for its first sitting day of 2024.
Members of Parliament returned to Ottawa on Monday vowing action on Canadians' pressing concerns around grocery and housing costs, as conversation about the carbon tax bubbled up when the House of Commons opened for its first sitting day of 2024.
Fresh off of their respective caucus retreats — where the Liberals, Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois and New Democrats huddled behind closed doors to plot out their political strategies and policy priorities — the first day back on Parliament Hill this year was once again affordability-focused.
Kicking off this conversation for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's minority Liberal government was a handful of cabinet ministers, who held a press conference to "provide an update on the government's economic plan."
There, Housing Minister Sean Fraser announced he'll be offering post-secondary institutions low-cost loans to build more student housing on- and off-campus, and Innovation and Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, said he's written to Canada's Competition Bureau about grocers' lacking measures to tackle food inflation.
Up for debate first on Monday was how the House plans to respond to the highly controversial senate amendments made to a Conservative private members' bill meant to offer farmers a break from the carbon tax.
As deliberations got underway, the Conservatives indicated they will be tabling "an amendment to reject the Senate’s gutting of the bill and pass C-234 in its original form," calling for the other parties to support them and vote to reject the Senate's changes.
How lines of support will fall, and what happens next with this legislation aimed at removing the federal carbon price from certain farming practices, will be determined once this bill comes up for a vote.
