Senator Dalphond: Senator Wells, will you accept another question?

Senator Wells: Yes, Senator Dalphond.

Senator Dalphond: Thank you, senator.

[English]

I have two questions, but I will wait for the second round for the next one.

The first question is about the — if I read the bill properly — carve-out, to use an expression, which I think is rather proper. The carve-out is good for 8 years, but it can be extended by the government afterwards if it believes that it should be extended for another 8 years or 10 years or 20 years.

Don’t you think it would be better if the bill also provided that the government could reduce the eight years, which has been provided here, if next year or two years from now there are technology advancements that make it interesting to use another technology and, instead, use something else based on solar power or wind power, other than natural gas or propane, to dry the grain, for example?

Senator Wells: Thank you, Senator Dalphond. That is an excellent question, and, of course, any government can do anything it wants, as long as it has the will of the chambers.

This is established at eight years in this bill. Of course, the government can extend it, but a government can also repeal it or make an amendment to make it six years or make it any number of years.

I didn’t hear what you said, but any amendment can be made to any existing legislation.

Senator Dalphond: There is only five minutes left.

My first question was really about the power granted to the Governor-in-Council to extend the date, but there is no such power granted to the Governor-in-Council to shorten it. You said, “Well, you can amend the law.” To amend the law is an interesting exercise.

My question is the following, and it follows on the questions from Senator Gagné.

We know that, based on the carbon tax, every year the government will make a calculation of what the farmers are going to pay for the tax on carbon in Saskatchewan, and that becomes the pool for Saskatchewan that is going to be divided, at the end of the year among the farmers of Saskatchewan, based on the costs of operating their farms, not the cost for propane and not the cost for natural gas.

Are you saying that if this bill comes into effect in June of this year, the amount that was set aside for the farmers of Saskatchewan in January and that has to be shared among the farmers will no longer be shared or that it will still be shared? And if it will still be shared, I don’t understand why the farmers have to gouge their price to get the higher price. They can get the tax back.

I want to understand the logic of the arguments, because I fail to understand it.

Senator Wells: Thank you, Senator Dalphond.

I don’t think I said, and I don’t agree if you said, that the farmers will gouge the price up and that they will share in those spoils.

This is simply an expansion of the already-existing exemption for equipment or fuel that doesn’t exist. If you have a grain dryer, and it is powered by natural gas or propane, this would allow that to be exempted from the carbon tax. If there is something that does exist on an industrial scale — and we hope that exists within the eight years — then that would qualify.

I don’t know if this is answering your question. The other part is that we know that laws can be repealed. We spent the first two years of the Trudeau government repealing laws, and this can happen to that. We can amend it from eight years to six years, depending upon not just the available fuels but the available equipment on an industrial scale out there. I think farmers know best. I’m not a farmer, but I think they know best when they say, in consultation in the development of the bill with former Senator Griffin; MP Philip Lawrence; and MP Ben Lobb, who sponsored this bill — people who are familiar with the farming communities and heard from the ranchers, growers and farmers in developing this — that eight years seems a reasonable amount of time. If it is to be extended, that is the will of the chambers.

That is where I would go with that.

Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: Would Senator Wells agree to take a question?

Senator Wells: Absolutely.