44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 12, 2023 10:00AM
- Dec/12/23 2:13:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians hate the carbon tax. We see premiers suing the government, first nations taking the government to court and people lined up in breadlines at the food bank, because they cannot afford to eat.
Farmers feed this country. They do not understand why the Prime Minister continues to tax the inputs they must purchase to grow food. They are taxes that their competitors do not pay, yet the Liberal rural affairs minister has just made a spectacle of herself, stating that the country needs to vote for more Liberals if people want an exemption to this unfair tax.
The Prime Minister has instructed his appointed senators to gut the Conservative bill to remove carbon taxes on farmers, and we have the NDP leader willing to vote against farmers in the House of Commons to keep the Prime Minister in power. Canadians agree: The Prime Minister and the NDP-Liberal government are just not worth the cost.
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- Dec/12/23 2:24:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the truth is that the Prime Minister is not spending money on any of those things. He has a food program that does not feed kids. It feeds bureaucracies and creates frameworks that kids cannot eat. He has a housing affordability program that doubles the cost of housing, a housing accelerator that has not built a single house and a carbon tax that has not reduced emissions.
Instead of spending billions on programs that cause inflation and do nothing but sound pretty, why will he not axe the tax on our farmers so they can feed Canadians this winter?
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Mr. Speaker, it is merry Christmas and I guess the member opposite does not realize what country she is in, but the merry Christmas gift from this Prime Minister to farmers is what? It is a billion-dollar carbon tax bill in their stocking, quadrupling that carbon tax under the tree; and the gift from the Prime Minister's Liberal loyalists in the Senate is to cancel Bill C-234, preventing a carbon-tax carve-out for farmers.
When we have two million Canadians lined up at food banks every month and those numbers only getting worse when they increase taxes on farmers, why was the Prime Minister cancelling Christmas instead of cancelling the quadrupling of his carbon tax on farmers, families and first nations?
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- Dec/12/23 3:06:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, the cost of taking over a family farm is becoming insurmountable. A family in Elrose has passed their family farm down to the next generation. Over the past year, the carbon tax on natural gas alone has cost this young family over $3,000 and the Prime Minister's Christmas gift to them is to quadruple the carbon tax. This is just insane.
Since the Prime Minister will not axe the tax before Christmas, does he truly believe a new generation of farmers should pay these ridiculous costs, or has making farming unaffordable been his goal all along?
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- Dec/12/23 3:06:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, are we meant to believe that on the other side of the House, in their zeal to vote against a carbon tax that they see as harming farmers, they would vote against all funding for Canada's poultry, egg and dairy farmers? Is that a way to support farmers? Is the way to support first nations to cut all housing for new housing on reserve for first nations? Is the way to help families to cut affordable child care and affordable dental care? No one believes them.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal government is out of touch, and it is Canadians who are paying the price. That is exactly what we are seeing with the carbon tax. It has a negative effect on everyone in different ways.
I would like to focus on the farmers who grow the food. They are seeing some of the worst impacts of the carbon tax. As time goes on, farmers and ranchers face higher input costs, including on the fuel they need to use. They are getting crushed by rising fuel costs and are caught in the unfair position of absorbing costs at each and every stage of production.
That is why Conservatives brought forward a common-sense solution that we thought would receive the support of all parties. Bill C-234 would provide an exemption from the carbon tax on all on farm fuels. Everyone supported the idea and voted with us, except for the majority of the Liberal caucus, of course. Most of them voted against it, but fortunately for Canadian farmers, Bill C-234 passed in the House of Commons anyway. That was back in the spring. Eventually, the bill reached third reading in the Senate.
However, it seems that the Liberals cannot accept that their coalition partner, the NDP, supported our bill. At the last opportunity, some senators appointed by the Prime Minister have been trying to shut it down. There have been delays in passing it, and more recently, amendments have basically gutted Bill C-234. This is right in line with the Liberal approach to this bill. If they cannot stop it from passing, they want to at least make sure it will provide the least amount of benefit possible to the farmers who grow our food. We know that the activist environment minister does not want any more carve-outs to his carbon tax, no matter how much it hurts Canadians.
I originally called on the Prime Minister to tell his appointed senators to stop the blocking of Bill C-234. It seemed likely that the environment minister or the Minister of Agriculture might respond in question period, but instead, it was the Minister of Innovation, who I know is a very influential member in his caucus and cabinet. There are rumours that he might want to be the next leader soon. I hope that he will use his influence to exempt farm fuels from the carbon tax or, better yet, axe the tax altogether. I would even suggest that, if he includes that in his leadership race bid when the time comes, he might be the one to come out on top.
The situation with Bill C-234 has changed in some ways, but there is still a chance to pass it as the House of Commons intended. That needs to happen so that we can provide relief to our farmers and make a difference for Canadian families. It is not too late to fix the problem, if the Liberals really want to do that, but that is the question: What do they really want to do?
Week after week, I have been bringing up different examples of how much the carbon tax is crushing farmers and ranchers, but the Liberals are not going to support giving them some relief if they do not want it to happen. Is that part of the plan? Are they trying to make farming unaffordable, especially for the up-and-coming new generation of farmers? l hear about this regularly in my office, when I host town halls or when I am out buying groceries. It is amazing how many people talk to me about the situation with their families, with their sons or daughters wanting to take over the farm and what that is going to look like, or what the costs of that are going to be, especially after eight years of the Liberal government. The fact is that everything is costing more and more.
Is there a future for young producers? That is at the heart of this. That is at the heart of why Conservatives want to pass Bill C-234. It is to get a carve-out for all on farm fuels, for both the farmers of the present and the farmers of the future. I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary could confirm his support to repeal the carbon tax for all on farm fuels, as Bill C-234 was originally written and intended to do.
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- Dec/12/23 6:54:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I can ensure people that imprisoning farmers was a Liberal idea because they simply want to have grain-marketing freedom. How absurd is that? That is the Liberal Party.
Farmers have always done more for the environment than the current government would ever dream of. In fact, the parliamentary secretary admitted in his remarks that all that the carbon tax is, is an income redistribution scheme. Notice that the Liberals do not have any statistics to talk about how emissions have gone down thanks to the carbon tax. The truth is that they cannot quantify it, so the only thing they can talk about is the income redistribution scheme that the carbon tax has become.
I just want to make my final point that, again, it was farmers, not the government, who came up with zero-till technology, or just the farming practice in and of itself. It was farmers who came up with the 4R principle, and they have been practising it on their farms for the last number of decades. It was not the government's idea. Farmers have done and always will do more for the environment than the government ever will.
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Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to be able to stand in the House to follow up on a question that I asked the Prime Minister, which fell under the agriculture file.
In my response today, I need to tell the story of a woman named Dawn who, up until recently, ran a multi-generational greenhouse called “Shirley's Greenhouse”, named after her mom. I chatted with Dawn the other day and she shared something very tragic. Due to Liberal policies, specifically the carbon tax, as well as the fact that she ran into some challenges in her life as a single mom, all of a sudden the planned resilience in her agricultural operation had evaporated following increased costs associated with the carbon tax and interest rates, both of which are a direct impact from the actions of this Liberal government. Dawn shared her tragic story with me about how, after trying to make things work as a greenhouse operator and a multi-acre vegetable crop grower, she simply could not make a go of it. She has been forced to sell, and just recently, that was finalized.
Dawn asked me to make sure that I keep fighting for farmers. She proudly told me that she did not put her logo on her trailer that she took around to farmers' markets, because she did not just promote herself. The sticker she put on her trailer and her vehicles said, “No Farmers No Food”. I could hear the emotion in Dawn's voice as she explained how the carbon tax and bad Liberal policies directly attacked her and her ability to make her operation successful, even though it was a multi-generational operation.
However, what is truly tragic is that she had another conversation with another politician. That politician was the Minister of Agriculture. In a video Zoom call, he had met with a number of farmers from across the prairies, and Dawn shared her concerns directly with him about how the carbon tax was impacting Canadians.
Now, I can get passionate in debate in this place, and there is a reason for that. Canadians like Dawn tell their stories. She described how, just days before my conversation with her this weekend, she had told her concerns to the Minister of Agriculture directly, and they fell on deaf ears.
Farmers deserve better, and what is truly tragic is that, as the Liberals are attacking farmers by their refusal to support common-sense Conservative Bill C-234, their attacks on fertilizer mandates and a whole host of other things, now the debates and discussions are ongoing about how they are going to regulate cow farts. I wish I was making this up.
As the Liberals attack agriculture, the reality is that it is Canadians who pay more. As farmers are forced to cut back, close their operations and reduce their ability to produce the world-class food that we need, it is Canadians who are forced to pay the price, and we see the direct impact of that in the cost of food.
My question is simple: Why will these Liberals not listen to farmers like Dawn—
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- Dec/12/23 7:00:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would not agree with the member's conclusions; again, he tries to imply misinformation. It is just not true that the Government of Canada does not support farmers.
We can go back to the days when I was an opposition member; I just made reference to the Canadian Wheat Board, and I was on Main Street, by Portage Avenue. I can tell the member that there were hundreds of farmers out there, furious with the Stephen Harper government. They believed the government was destroying the industry and, at least in part, many of those farming industries.
We are always going to find that the Liberal government as a whole has been and continues to be exceptionally supportive of farming and rural communities. This can be found through a wide variety of measures, whether it is budgetary motions or the expansion of international trade. No government has signed off on more trade agreements than the current government has; this has enhanced all sorts of opportunities for farmers. We will find that, on agricultural products, a good percentage is actually exported outside Canada. A good example of that is the hog industry; in the province of Manitoba, that industry is doing exceptionally well. There are certain industries within our rural communities that we could give more attention to, and the government will continue to do so.
What I find somewhat sad is that the Conservative Party of Canada is trying to utilize the farming community, as they are doing with indigenous communities now, to try to win the battle of getting rid of the price on pollution. The Conservative Party needs to wake up and realize that it is only the Conservative Party of Canada that seems to want to deny that sensible approach for dealing with climate change. The world is moving towards recognizing climate change and bringing in progressive policies, such as the price on pollution.
We have to take into consideration individuals such as Dawn. When she talks about interest rates and the impact of carbon pricing, we need to listen. Where the government is in a position to take action, I believe it is doing just that. However, to use farmers such as Dawn as a political tool to get rid of the price on pollution generally is wrong.
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- Dec/12/23 7:03:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was Dawn who asked me to make sure that her story was told. Farmers such as Dawn are paying the price for these Liberal policies. This is not some Conservative political agenda. This is an agenda to make sure that Canadians can afford to eat, be housed and heat their homes.
As that member has refused to answer Dawn's question, I would like to reference something else. A veteran shared with me a gas bill. It is a fairly straightforward thing. Many people in this place get them. In the context of the carve-out that the Liberals provided for 3% of Canadians, this constituent, a veteran on a fixed income, shared with me that his cost of gas was $55. He lives in a rural area. The carbon tax and the GST on it was $44.65. At a time when there is an affordability crisis—
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