SoVote

Mr. Larry Maguire (Brandon—Souris, CPC)

Jan/31/22 12:45:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I noted in my colleague's presentation today that he was talking about the inflationary value of housing over the last two decades, when Canadians are most concerned about it happening in the last three years. I just read a report this morning that it has even gone up 26.6% in the last year in many areas of Canada. There were references to these sorts of things in the throne speech last fall, but I am wondering if the government can give us a more specific explanation as to how it is going to deal with this, given that the Bank of Canada and others are considering holding the interest rates where they are.

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Context: House Hansard - 20 - Jan/31/22

Mr. Larry Maguire (Brandon—Souris, CPC)

Jan/31/22 6:24:44 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-208

Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to stand in the House for the first time since the election to provide a speech. It has been since last fall, so I want to thank the citizens of Brandon—Souris for allowing me the privilege of representing them here in the House of Commons again. I want to speak to the throne speech today. It seems like a lifetime ago when the throne speech was tabled, only last November, and it has only given me more time to reflect on how disappointing it was to hear the lack of vision from the government for farmers, our agri-food sector and rural Canada, just as my colleague for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner indicated. The throne speech is not just a symbolic document wrapped up in pomp and circumstance. It is the government's first opportunity in a new Parliament to lay out its blueprint for the coming years. I can assure members that the ministers, the deputy ministers, the Privy Council Office and the entire public service take this document quite seriously. Moving forward, they will use the throne speech, coupled with ministerial mandate letters, to set cabinet priorities and determine which government bills will be tabled and then debated. As someone who represents a vast rural constituency, where countless jobs and families' livelihoods are directly tied to the agriculture sector, I must inform these people that they do not exist, according to the Liberal throne speech. They are the invisible Canadians, out there in rural Canada. As someone who farmed for decades, I never thought I would see the day that the Government of Canada would so nonchalantly forget an industry that is so integral to our country. Who does the government think raises and grows the food we put on the tables? We are all aware that the issue of the day is who transports that food, as well. Canada has the potential to become a food powerhouse on the world stage, yet there is not a mention of the agricultural industry's potential. With the global population growing and wealth growing, the need for trusted food sources will only get larger. To meet the targets laid out in the Barton Report, we need a vision and a plan to get there. In the coming months it will have been four years since that report, and we have yet to see an action plan to seize the tremendous potential of our agricultural sector. Some provinces have done a better job of that than the federal government has. It has a lot of people wondering, “Where is the beef?” How do they deliver? There are over two million Canadians whose jobs are connected to the agri-food sector. It is worth billions of dollars to our economy, and its potential for growth is as large as the prairie sky. In Manitoba, we have thousands of farmers. We also have value-added processing for such things as vegetables, dairy, sunflowers, flax seed, canola, peas, potatoes, beef and pork. If we want to grow our agri-food sector, it starts at the farm. To support farm families, I took concrete action in the last Parliament by introducing my private member's bill, Bill C-208. Despite the Liberals' attempt to quash my bill, it is now the law of the land. Bill C-208 sends a message of hope to young farmers who want to carry on what their families started. No longer will parents be given a false choice between a larger retirement package after selling to a stranger or a massive tax bill after selling to a family member, their own child or grandchild. I will remind my Liberal colleagues that their government is still sowing confusion, as it said it was going to amend Bill C-208 sometime in November, 2021. That date has come and gone, and we are now into a new tax year. That means the government will make retroactive tax changes back to November, 2021, but it will not tell us what it actually plans until some later date. That level of uncertainty is the last thing farm families and small businesses need right now in Canada. I was looking for a clear commitment in the throne speech on what initiatives the Liberal government planned to introduce in this Parliament. I was looking for practical steps the government would take to grow our beef herd and to support our livestock producers, who are still struggling as the drought has depleted pastures and feed costs continue to rise. I wanted to see additional supports to assist farmers and producers impacted by the drought by expediting access to business risk management programs and making up any provincial funding shortfalls. I wanted to see a commitment to amend existing laws to allow livestock owners to use local abattoirs. We need to make permanent the temporary measures that allowed provincial authorities to enable trade across the country, and to use their abattoirs for products that would move across provincial borders. These are common-sense policies the Liberals could have announced in the throne speech that could have been welcomed across the country. It is also clear that we need to reform and improve business risk management programs, particularly AgriInvest and AgriRecovery, as my colleague just mentioned. The throne speech should have included a commitment to bring agricultural stakeholders together for a summit-like meeting with the Minister of Agriculture to develop a way forward on insurance programs such as AgriStability. Instead of just fully exempting farmers from the carbon tax, the Liberals announced a complicated rebate system that has been widely panned as unfair. The Grain Growers of Canada reported that some farmers are only going to get back 20% to 30% of the taxes they paid. To fix this once and for all, the Liberals could have just exempted farmers from the carbon tax in its entirety. There would be no need for rebates, no need for paperwork and no need to create unnecessary red tape. Rising input costs, such as skyrocketing fuel and fertilizer prices, are already causing financial challenges. The one thing the government could do to help farmers overnight is just exempt them from that carbon tax. The throne speech also did not contain any clarity about the government's plans to reduce fertilizer emissions by 30%. As many western farmers can attest, any time the Liberal government muses about making changes that will impact their operations or livelihoods, there is always a sense of apprehension. As a farmer, as a farm leader and then as an elected representative, I know the disconnect between those in Ottawa who think they know best and those who sow their fields. It was not long ago that the Liberals called farmers tax cheats. Their 2017 proposed tax changes would have cost farm families thousands of dollars. Thanks to the farmers and entrepreneurs who loudly opposed those tax changes, and the fact that Bill Morneau is no longer the finance minister, those tax hikes are yesterday's news. Whether the Liberals are attempting to eliminate the deferred grain tickets or doing everything in their power to delay the implementation of my private member's bill, there is enough evidence to suggest farmers' anxieties are well-founded. No details have been announced on the Liberals' plans to reduce fertilizer emissions, and this has caused all sorts of consternation within the farming community. Instead of working collaboratively with farmers, the Liberals have decided to stick out this arbitrary number with zero information on how they plan to implement it. This is not the right way to govern, nor does it inspire any confidence in the thousands of farm families across our country. A report just released by Meyers Norris Penny outlined the potential impact of reducing fertilizer emissions by 30%, and the numbers are staggering. They have calculated that for corn, canola and spring wheat, there would be a total value of lost production of 10.4 billion bushels per year by 2030. As the report stated, this would have a dramatic impact on Canada's ability to fill domestic processing capacity. This would also reduce our ability to export, as well. I would be remiss not to talk about the logistical challenges that farmers and agri-food processors have faced due to either the B.C. floods, the pandemic or the fact we need to vastly expand our infrastructure system. As the recent Auditor General's report stated, the Liberal government's investing in Canada plan was unable to provide meaningful public reporting on overall progress. If Canadian farmers and agri-food processors are going to continue to grow and export around the world, we need to make sure the roads, bridges, highways, railways and ports have the capacity for them to do so. I raise these agricultural issues as I fear that farmers do not have a voice in the Liberal government. I worry their concerns fall on deaf ears. Unfortunately, the Liberal throne speech was silent on these matters and it lacked any bold vision for the sector. There is life in rural Canada. There is hope, and there is a strong future. I implore the Liberal government not to forget about farmers. Do not take them for granted. Let us work together and implement many of the ideas our Conservative team has been advocating for. Farmers are not asking for the moon. They just want to be treated fairly and want a government that is willing to listen.

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Context: House Hansard - 20 - Jan/31/22

Mr. Larry Maguire

Jan/31/22 6:35:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is déjà vu. I want to thank my colleague from Winnipeg North for his fine question, but I would have thought he was asking me that question on the years of the Harper government, which signed more trade agreements than any government in the history of Canada. He is absolutely wrong when he says that the Liberals have signed more than the Harper government did, and they still have not gotten them all implemented. They are still trying to enforce the CETA, and still trying to get more agreements that were signed in those days to actually be implemented into the world trade issues. From the comments that I made here, it is very obvious that the government has failed to get the dollars out. It is fine to announce infrastructure dollars, but it has not gotten them out the door and the projects are not going. I have a fine case of a bridge that needs to be built in my own community. I authorized that bridge for that constituency under the Harper government in 2015, and it has not started to be built yet.

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Context: House Hansard - 20 - Jan/31/22

Mr. Larry Maguire

Jan/31/22 6:37:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague and his Bloc cohorts for the work they did with me on that particular bill, as well as Guy Caron, the previous interim New Democratic leader who brought the same bill forward, which the Liberals killed in 2017 and tried to kill again in the 2021 session. However, my colleague is so right in that we need to make sure that we are vigilant. I mean, I hope that the Liberals have had an epiphany and are not going to change that bill or try to, because people have already made the investments in selling their operations to their own families, which I think is a credit to how much this bill was needed. I have had some indications from some of the largest accounting firms in Canada that that bill has, unbeknownst to me when I brought it forward, probably done more for small businesses than any bill in the House of Commons concerning the tax department for small businesses that qualify in the last 25 years. I give my colleagues credit for the support that we got on that and for my Liberal colleagues who supported it too, because there were 19 of them in the House who did support it as well. I also thank the Senate for passing it as expeditiously as it did last June. I look forward to hopefully working with my colleagues again if there are any potential changes that may come down the road.

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