44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 28, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague's whole speech. He did not mention Bill C-234 or the Senate at all.
Very simply, over the last week, how many Liberal-appointed senators did the environment minister call to try to bully them and convince them to vote against this bill?
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- Nov/28/23 1:08:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe my colleague did not hear me. I said “Liberal-appointed senators”, because the Prime Minister is a Liberal and he did appoint these senators. Therefore, there are Liberal-appointed senators.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join the debate today on Bill C-234, the carbon tax exemption for heating buildings, grain drying and irrigation on farms. We are also talking about the role of the Senate in the parliamentary democracy of a two-house system.
My civics is a little rusty, but I do remember that the Senate does not have any ability for taxation because they are unelected. I cannot remember when the Senate has held up a taxation bill. My colleague from B.C. brought up a few bills, but I do not believe they were taxation bills.
First and foremost, we have to realize that what the Senate is doing right now is not within its purview. The Senate has no power of taxation because, as appointed senators, they are not accountable to their constituents. They are not elected every four years. One of the main points of democracy is taxation with representation. The Senate does not have the authority to hold up a taxation bill.
I wanted to get that on the record because the crux of the argument today is whether the Senate is doing what it is allowed to do. The other discussion is on how important Bill C-234 is and how quickly should we pass it.
My colleague, the member for Huron—Bruce, has put on the record that he is the Conservative member who brought forward the private member's bill. I am very proud I was on the agriculture committee that talked about this bill, and we had the support of the committee to pass it on to the House for third reading.
The opposition came together and voted in favour. A majority of members from across the country, along with three Liberals, and I will not forget that, voted to move this bill forward to third reading because they knew it was important to Canadian farmers. That is what this comes down to.
Our leader put it very succinctly. One of his constituents is paying $10,000 a month in carbon tax. How can anyone be expected to run a business when the carbon tax is $10,000 a month? This has to be paid to the federal government on a taxation policy that does not do what it is supposed to do.
I am also very happy to say that I will be sharing my time with the brilliant member for Lethbridge.
Getting back to the $10,000 a month on carbon tax, no business can eat that kind of a bill. When the farmer who produces the food is taxed, and the trucker who ships the food is taxed, every Canadian who goes to the grocery store will be taxed. The fallacy the Liberals and NDP bring forward is that this is a rural and remote issue, hence the carve-out, for political reasons, in the Maritimes.
This is not a rural issue. It is not an urban issue. If people go to the grocery store to buy food for their family, it affects them each and every time. What we are trying to do in the House today is make the upper chamber realize, again, because we have already passed this bill, that this is an important bill to fight the ever-increasing cost of groceries across our country.
I am not sure that has sunk in for some of the members across the aisle. Maybe their chef has not told them that they have to pay extra for the food. Maybe they live in downtown areas and do not go to the grocery store often. I can say that my wife and I have to go grocery shopping, every now and then when I am home in time, and our grocery bills have continued to climb. We have talked to neighbours and friends, and people at the hockey rink, and they are feeling the pinch every day when trying to feed their families. We see mothers adding water to milk to make it go a little farther.
We see two million people in our country using a food bank every month. That is a staggering fact, and they are not just numbers. They are parents, grandparents and children. The majority of them are children. That is not the Canada I grew up in. It is not. It is not the Canada we want to leave for our children. It is something we need to have a very open discussion about.
Our leader, the member for Carleton, made it very clear that in two years we are going to have a carbon tax election. Canadians will be asking whether or not they want our common-sense Conservative approach, which would include axing the tax so people could afford groceries and getting spending under control to lower interest rates so people could afford to buy a home or pay rent.
Rents have doubled over the last long eight years of the NDP-Liberal government. Rents have doubled. Mortgages have doubled. It used to take 25 years to pay off a home in Canada, but now it takes 25 years to afford a down payment on a home in Canada. That has happened all in the last eight years under the Prime Minister and the Liberals' reckless spending.
This is where it comes back to the argument around Bill C-234. It is something that can be done immediately to lower the price of food for Canadians. It is something that can be done to ensure that our producers can continue to produce the world-class foods we have.
When $10,000 is taken out of the pockets of producers, they cannot invest in new farm technologies. They cannot invest in new fertilizer options or new machinery that would lower emissions. What we are doing right now is kneecapping our farmers so they cannot be innovative. It is not a slogan. Technologies over taxes is a way to lower our environmental emissions.
I am so proud to be from Saskatchewan. We have innovative policies in the agriculture sector, but we do not get credit for them. We have crop rotation. We have zero till. We have straight cut combines. We have precision agriculture. For example, when someone is adding fertilizer, it lowers and raises the rates depending on the field moisture. These are innovative technologies that have lowered emissions over the last 20 years. However, for some reason, the government has given no credit to those producers who have adopted this technology. I do not understand why.
The Liberals put a benchmark of 2018 as the year when people get credit for innovative farming practices. Why are we not praising all the Canadian agriculture producers who have being doing it right for the last 15 or 20 years? We can talk about some of the things we have done. The National Cattle Feeders' Association said it very well. It said:
Canada’s feedlot sector embraces innovative practices that support competitiveness and sustainability. To compete in an integrated North American market, cattle feeders carefully manage input costs including feed and fuel.
Feedlots rely on propane and natural gas for essential practices, including on-farm drying, steam flaking and barn heating. These are necessities on a feedlot to make sure they are producing the best opportunities for cattle to grow and have those gains for when they go to plants.
Why are we not promoting what we are doing on an international stage? The Liberals will always say the carbon tax is an environmental policy, not an economic policy. If the Liberals are so concerned about the environment, though they have not reached one target in the last eight years, why are we not taking Canadian agriculture to the world? Why do we go on the world stage, pretend it is a poor cousin and we are embarrassed about our agriculture sector?
Our ag minister should be going around the world saying how good our farming practices are here on Canadian soil, and promote that across the country and across the world. That is what we should be doing on the international stage, but we are not.
I asked the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge about the Liberal-appointed senators, because they are appointed by the Liberal Prime Minister. Why would they not vote in favour of this bill that would see all food prices in Canada lowered? It defies common sense.
When I talk to people in my riding and in my community in Regina, they talk about the cost of living. They talk about choosing between paying the heating bill, because it does get cold in Regina, and paying their mortgage. It is choosing between paying the heating bill or buying groceries they need for their kids to go to school with packed lunches. These are decisions in our country in 2023 that parents should not have to be making.
It is time we put this bill into practice, lower the price of food across our country, and use common-sense principles to bring home lower prices for my home and everyone's home. Let us bring it home for Canadians and pass this bill. Let us call on the senators to make sure it does happen.
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- Nov/28/23 1:39:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is a very interesting question from a person who supports a Prime Minister who wore blackface, a person who supports the Prime Minister who elbowed a female MP on the floor of the House of Commons because he was not getting his way in a vote, a person who divided Canadians, called them undesirables and people who do not deserve to be in the same country when they just wanted to talk to the Prime Minister, and supports someone who will not ever talk to people if they do not agree with the Liberals and the Prime Minister.
The member asked what my opinion of democracy is. My opinion of democracy is when someone has a public phone number, and people can call it and ask for the person's stance. At least people can have a conversation, not being divisive or calling people undesirable, saying they should not have the same freedoms because they made a personal health choice. What a disgusting question.
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- Nov/28/23 1:41:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, some senators are elected. Alberta has elections for senators already, but the Prime Minister will not appoint the senators that have already been elected by the people of Alberta. This is another way he thumbs his nose at democracy.
To the member's point, I agree that 3% of Canadians are farmers. They help feed Canada and the world, and they deserve this carbon tax exemption because it will help them innovate on their farms. One thing I will always believe is that a dollar in the pocket of someone who earned it is always worth more than a dollar in the government coffers that was taken from that person or company in the first place.
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Mr. Speaker, as a member of the NDP-Liberal coalition, I am sure we would not want to cast the sins of the father onto the son. The NDP leader would not want that to happen.
I was not around when this supposedly took place, but I appreciate the member's support for this motion. The member is an hon. member of the agriculture committee and I appreciate him being consistent in the application of his vote on third reading of Bill C-234 and this motion. I thank him for that.
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