Senator Batters: Senator Gold, I guarantee you that any one of Canada’s farmers could build a barn for much less than $8 million. This bill passed the House of Commons with all-party support. Subjecting barns and farm buildings to the Trudeau government’s punitive carbon tax puts our agricultural producers at a global disadvantage. Your government solutions for farmers are not rooted in practicality or common sense. When will this government offer Canadian farmers more than just hot air and axe this punishing carbon tax?

Hon. Denise Batters: Senator Gold, last week at the Senate Agriculture Committee, Trudeau-appointed senators — including your own government deputy leader — gutted a Conservative’s bill to exempt farmers from paying carbon tax on propane and natural gas. One amendment stripped from the bill heating and cooling for barns and farm buildings. The very next day, a news report revealed that the Trudeau government spent $8 million of taxpayers’ money to replace a barn at Rideau Hall with a two‑level, zero-carbon, heated car garage they’ve dubbed “the barn” — talk about not worth the cost.

Senator Gold, is this the Trudeau government’s prototype of a brave, new, carbon-neutral future on Canadian farms? Why is the Trudeau government so determined to stick it to the very people who produce Canadians’ food?

Hon. Leo Housakos: I want to shift now from one fiasco to another. It’s now been a year and a half since Trudeau’s Housing Accelerator Fund for building new homes in Canada was announced. We look to Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver and find record lows in building homes. When will your government realize that its home-building plan is a failure and go back to the drawing board or, better yet, just resign for the betterment of future generations of Canadians?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Senator Gold, for years Iranian Canadians have called on the Trudeau government to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, as a terrorist entity. They did so before and after the IRGC shot down Flight PS752, killing Canadian citizens and permanent residents. They did so last year, after a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, was murdered. They did so again in the wake of the evil attacks on Israel by Hamas, which was surely backed by the Iranian regime.

Minister LeBlanc said he asked his officials to update their advice about listing the IRGC. How much longer, Senator Gold, will it take to criminalize this terrorist group?