Juno News - Nearly half of Canadians are just $200 away from not being able to cover their basic bills

00:00:00.000 normal working people are still fighting to afford basics and it's easy to gloss over something like

00:00:05.960 that. But when you really think about it, it becomes more real. Okay. So around 50% of Canadians

00:00:12.460 are within $200 of not being able to pay the very bare minimum on their bills. That means covering

00:00:20.320 the bare minimum on their credit cards, keeping the lights on and keeping some food in the house.

00:00:25.020 Okay. Close to 50% of Canadians are in that situation. We've got record amount of people

00:00:33.360 demanding help at food banks now. Okay. The highest level of growth that these volunteers

00:00:40.060 are seeing at food banks come from working families. What that means put normally is that

00:00:46.980 a parent who's holding down a job is still counting on donated jars of peanut butter

00:00:51.960 to feed their kid. That's what increased demand from working families at food banks really means.

00:00:58.620 So at the end of the day, it is the cost of living that is going to be front and center.

00:01:04.280 And I would encourage everybody watching here to send an email to their member of parliament.

00:01:10.020 Tell them that you want them to have smaller government, less waste, lower taxes, so that

00:01:17.580 people can afford normal things in life. And for those of you who are thinking, oh, well,

00:01:23.280 it doesn't matter what I say. These MPs won't care. That's not true. Because it was average

00:01:28.960 people that made even Mark Carney blank on the carbon tax. If you look around at gas stations

00:01:36.140 this summer, it's about 20 cents cheaper than it was last summer. That's because the consumer

00:01:41.840 carbon tax is gone. And you folks made even Mark Carney say, I need to get rid of this and come

00:01:49.100 up with a hidden one. So you speaking up and demanding something really matters. And what

00:01:53.840 also really matters is sharing messages like this. You won't hear this sort of talk happening at will

00:02:00.300 on most mainstream media channels. You won't hear discussions like this. You won't hear advocacy like

00:02:06.460 this.

Juno News - August 25, 2025