- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Foothills
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $161,345.02
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, the NDP-Liberal government is not worth the cost of food. While Canadians are skipping meals, the minister who is in charge of lowering food costs for Canadians is rubbing shoulders with Hollywood celebrities and political elites at the most expensive dinner imaginable. He is dining out at the White House on the taxpayer dime. After nine years, the current Prime Minister is out to lunch and the ministers are out of touch.
Will the champagne coalition and caviar caucus lower food costs for Canadians and pass Bill C-234 in its original form?
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the current Prime Minister, Canadians are skipping meals, and food banks are overwhelmed. Eighty-three per cent of Canadians are paying $80 more a month for food than they were just six months ago. According to Second Harvest, more than half of the food banks in the Toronto area cannot meet demand, and they are putting families on wait-lists. Families cannot afford to put food on the table, and the crisis is getting worse as the Liberal-NDP government increases the carbon tax by 23%.
Will the Prime Minister reverse his decision to increase the carbon tax, and pass Bill C-234 in its original form so Canadians do not have to dumpster dive for their dinner?
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Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that it is good news when, after nine years of the Prime Minister, demand on food banks is at a record high and more and more Canadians cannot afford to feed their families.
In Prince Edward Island, the Caring Cupboard food bank is struggling just to keep its doors open. Its demand is up 70%. These are the agriculture minister's own constituents and what is his response? It is to increase the carbon tax by 23%, driving food costs even higher.
Why will the Prime Minister not ensure that farming and food is more affordable and pass Bill C-234 in its original form?
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years, Canadian farmers know that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. Over the last several weeks, I have received dozens of letters representing tens of thousands of farm families from right across the country. These are grain farmers, ranchers, mushroom growers, fruit and vegetable growers, provincial premiers and agriculture ministers.
They are unanimous. To ensure the sustainability of food production in Canada, they need the NDP-Liberal carbon tax coalition to reverse its 23% hike of the carbon tax and pass Bill C-234 in its original form.
Will the Prime Minister ensure that food and farming are affordable and pass Bill C-234 in its original form?
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Mr. Speaker, it is good to be here to speak about such an important issue and about our demand to allow the Liberals to have a carbon tax election.
Why are we asking for this? It is because 70% of Canadians, 70% of the premiers, are now saying that they oppose the Liberal-NDP carbon tax because of the impact it is having on their everyday lives.
I find it interesting, throughout the speeches today, that my Liberal and NDP colleagues keep professing that this is not impacting the cost of living and that this has nothing to do with affordability. That is simply not true.
We have the facts from the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The Parliamentary Budget Officer testified at committee, and he said, “once you factor in the rebate and also the economic impacts...the majority of households will see a negative impact as a result of the carbon tax.”
Canadians are waking up to this every single day. Certainly my constituents in Foothills are, who are paying $2,900 a year in the carbon tax. The Liberals say that they are so much better off. They are getting about $1,800 of their own money back, leaving them a thousand dollars worse off.
I do not understand why the Liberals and the NDP are fighting so hard to say that this is not impacting the cost of living. They should be celebrating this every single day when they hear about Canadians struggling to feed themselves, heat their homes, pay their mortgages or pay their interest rates. This is exactly what they want from the carbon tax. They want the carbon tax to be so expensive that it forces Canadians to change their behaviour, regardless of the fact that in my riding of 33,000 square kilometres, we do not have public transit. It does not exist. There are many parts of this country where we do not have alternatives. That is what makes this so frustrating and why Canadians have just had enough of the Liberal-NDP carbon tax coalition.
They also talk about how they have won elections while campaigning on the carbon tax. They misled Canadians in those elections. They said they would never increase the carbon tax higher than $50 a tonne. On April 1, it goes up 23% to $80 a tonne, on its way to $170 a tonne by 2030. The promise to Canadians from the Liberal-NDP carbon tax coalition was that the carbon tax would never go over $50 a tonne. It is amazing how the song changes when we are not in an election year.
That is why we are saying that, if they are so confident that Canadians support their 23% increase in the carbon tax, then go to an election and let Canadians decide. However, I am doubtful that they will vote to make that happen today because they know that 70% of Canadians oppose the carbon tax, right across this country.
The other part that they do not mention is that the GST is charged on top of the carbon tax. We also now have the numbers from the Parliamentary Budget Officer for just how punitive that GST is and what Canadians are paying. Last year, Canadians paid $486 million in GST just on the carbon tax. Next year, when they increase the carbon tax by 23%, that number will be a billion dollars.
Cumulatively, since the Liberals brought in their carbon tax, Canadians have paid $6 billion in GST just on the carbon tax. Not only is the carbon tax not reducing emissions and is clearly a tax grab, but the GST is just the whipped cream on top of their tax ice-cream cone. It is unbelievable, the amount that Canadians are being punished through the carbon tax, a tax on a tax.
Thankfully, again, Conservatives have a private member's bill to remove the GST from the carbon tax, and I certainly encourage my colleagues from across the floor to support that.
The carbon tax also has an incredibly devastating impact on Canadian farmers, which certainly leads to higher prices for Canadians on the grocery store shelves. I know my colleagues have mentioned that today. Common sense says this: If we increase taxes on the farmer who grows the food, the trucker who transports the food, the manufacturer who processes the food and the retailer who sells the food, do we know who will feel it at the end of that supply chain? It's the consumer who buys the food.
That is why food inflation stays well above the Canadian inflation index. Farmers are paying the carbon tax over and over again, when they buy fertilizer and fuel, when they plant their seeds, when they move their products to market and when they are hauling cattle or grain. Every single time, they are paying the carbon tax.
The Agriculture Carbon Alliance did a survey of 50 farms earlier this month. That survey of 50 farms showed that those farms across Canada were paying more than $320,000 in carbon taxes in one month. That is just 50 farms. We have close to 200,000 farms in Canada. If a small percentage is already paying more than $320,000 a month, and if we extrapolate that over every farm in Canada, members can understand why farmers are so frustrated with the Liberal-NDP carbon tax coalition and the punishment it is laying on them again on April 1, increasing the carbon tax by another 23%.
I have to ask, why? We put forward Bill C-234, which would give an exemption of the carbon tax on natural gas and propane for farmers to heat and cool their barns, to dry their grain and to power greenhouses, which grow fresh produce for Canadians across this country.
However, the Liberals have been playing games with that bill, trying to kill that bill in the Senate and, again, here in the House of Commons. We know that legislation would save farmers close to $1 billion a year, making them more economically viable and making food production more affordable for farmers, and certainly for Canadian consumers at the grocery stores.
However, the Liberals do not want to support legislation that supports Canadian farmers. Their answer, all the time, is that farmers are very supportive of the carbon tax. That is what the agriculture minister says every time I ask him a question on this issue. I have spoken to farmers right across this country, and I have not spoken to a single farmer, not one, who has said that we should keep the carbon tax in place and that they are very supportive of the carbon tax.
Farmers do not support the carbon tax, and it is not only due to the punishing higher input costs they have to pay but because it is making them look like laggards. In fact, Canadian farmers set the gold standard in sustainability and stewardship.
A recent report from the Global Institute for Food Security showed that on a ton of canola grown in Saskatchewan, the carbon footprint is 67% lower than anywhere else in the world. A trainload of Canadian wheat could travel around the world three and a half times before it has the same carbon footprint as wheat grown in Europe. These are incredible achievements.
Farmers should be lauded for those accomplishments, not punished with higher carbon taxes, but that is exactly what the Liberal-NDP carbon tax coalition is doing. How did farmers do this? It was not done through punitive regulation and carbon taxes; it was done through embracing new innovation and new technology, something they do every single day.
There are consequences to these carbon taxes. Canadians feel it every single day. I want to talk about some specifics. Collwest grain farm in Collingwood, Ontario, paid $36,000 in carbon taxes in one month. Quattro Farms in Bow Island, Alberta, paid $93,000 in carbon taxes in 2023. The Kielstra farm in my riding of Foothills paid $180,000 in carbon taxes last year to heat and cool their barns for their chickens, which is an animal health issue. A farm in the riding of Simcoe—Grey paid $25,000 in carbon taxes in the month of November alone.
This leads to higher food costs, and we are seeing two million Canadians go to food banks every single month. Those are unprecedented numbers. The Liberals say it has no impact on food costs. The Food Professor, the expert on food pricing in Canada, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois at Dalhousie University, said that inflationary pressures and uncompetitive policies, like the carbon tax, on growing, processing and transporting food will increase the costs of wholesale food by 34%. That is the impact that these policies are having on farmers, on truckers and on Canadian consumers who are just trying to feed their families.
This is unsustainable for Canadian consumers. This is unsustainable for Canadian farmers. My challenge to the Liberal-NDP carbon tax coalition, if they are so proud of this carbon tax and if they think Canadians will support this 23% increase on April 1, is for them to put their money where their mouths are and to call a carbon tax election, and let Canadians decide for themselves.
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Mr. Speaker, the fact is that farmers are succeeding where the Liberal-NDP carbon tax coalition is failing. What is the farmers' reward for this? A 23% increase in the carbon tax on April 1.
Common-sense Conservatives will axe the tax and reward farmers for those accomplishments. Do members know that wheat grown in Canada can travel around the world three and a half times before it has the same carbon footprint as wheat grown in Europe? Canadian farmers have accomplished this through innovation, not carbon taxes.
Will the Liberals finally admit they were wrong, pass Bill C-234 unamended and axe their plan to increase the carbon tax on April 1?
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Mr. Speaker, here is a number that most Canadians care about: two million Canadians are going to a food bank every single month. However, today is Canada's Agriculture Day, and how do the Liberals celebrate? By increasing the carbon tax by 23% on April 1, but it gets worse. We now know that the amendments to Bill C-234, pushed through by Liberal-appointed senators, would increase costs on farmers by $200 million. This Conservative common-sense bill in its original form would save farmers a billion dollars by 2030.
For Canada's Agriculture Day, will the Prime Minister celebrate with me and axe this tax on farmers to make food more affordable?
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Mr. Speaker, I wonder why the Prime Minister's priority is higher taxes and not food affordability. He can find $60 million for his ArriveCAN app, but he needs to quadruple the carbon tax on farmers and food. We are hearing the plea from Canadian families who want to axe the tax to make food affordable. I was in Sudbury this week meeting with organizers of food banks that are at a breaking point as demand has doubled and is rising. There is a common-sense Conservative bill, Bill C-234, which would give a carbon tax carve-out for farmers and lower the price of food. This Prime Minister is not worth the cost. Will he cancel his plans to increase the carbon tax on April 1 so Canadians can feed themselves?
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Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to say that the first thing we will cut is the Liberal-NDP carbon tax, and we will make life more affordable for Canadians.
Canadians are paying more for food than they ever have before, with two million people relying on a food bank every month. The Prime Minister's solution is to make food even more expensive. On April 1, Liberals plan to increase the carbon tax by 23%, which is part of their plan to quadruple it.
Conservatives have a common-sense bill, Bill C-234, which would remove the carbon tax for farmers, making food more affordable for Canadians.
Why will the Prime Minister not cancel his plan to increase the carbon tax on April 1 to ensure that Canadians can feed their family?
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Mr. Speaker, it is uncommon to see a government ignore the fact that two million Canadians are going to a food bank every single month, yet the Liberal-NDP carbon tax coalition wants to quadruple the carbon tax, making farming unsustainable. When we tax the farmer who grows the food and tax the trucker who hauls the food, we are increasing taxes on Canadians who buy the food. Again, millions of Canadians are going to a food bank every month, but Bill C-234 in its original form would provide relief now.
Will the Liberals reject the Senate amendments, take the tax off and ensure that Canadians can afford to put food on their tables?
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Mr. Speaker, today the Prime Minister has an opportunity to help families struggling with high food costs. Bill C-234 is back in the House after Liberal-appointed senators delayed and gutted the bill. This is a common-sense Conservative bill that would give a carbon tax carve-out to farmers and ensure that Canadians have access to affordable, Canadian-grown food.
When the Prime Minister quadruples his carbon tax, farmers will pay $1 billion a year, driving up food costs even higher. Will the Liberals reject the Senate amendments, take the carbon tax off farming and lower food prices for Canadians?
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Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate we have to rise to speak to Bill C-234 once again.
Before I get into the meat of the speech that I want to bring up today, I do want to give some thanks. I want to thank the member for Huron—Bruce for bringing this private member's bill forward, as well as the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South, who brought this bill forward in the previous Parliament, which shows how much work we have put into this legislation.
I would also like to thank those senators in the red chamber who made the right decision, one based on facts, not fiction. I know there was a lot of intimidation and bullying going on in the Senate as the Prime Minister and the environment minister were personally phoning senators to support the amendments to this very important bill. However, about 40 senators stayed strong; they represented their regions and represented the facts of the discussion and debate. I think that what this all comes down to today is to try to get the amendments removed and get the bill back into its original form and back to the Senate. This is a discussion about fact and fiction.
My comments today are going to be for my colleagues in the Bloc, the NDP and the Green Party who have strongly and staunchly supported this legislation all the way through. They have done so because they understand the importance of agriculture. They understand the importance of the economic viability of Canadian farm families and the critical role they play in feeding not only the world but also Canadians, ensuring that we have affordable, nutritious food grown right here in Canada to support Canadian families and Canadian consumers.
Unfortunately, the Liberal government is making decisions based on ideology and fiction. The environment minister was very clear that if there were another carve-out of the carbon tax, he would resign as environment minister. Therefore, we now know that the whole fallacy of the carbon tax being an untouchable part of the Liberal climate change policy is not true. The Liberals have already done a carbon tax carve-out for home heating oil that was focused basically on Atlantic Canada, but when it comes to a piece of legislation that is supported by every opposition party in the House, and even by a handful of Liberals, they are not willing to listen. It is about picking and choosing winners and losers when it comes to who gets a break from the carbon tax and who has to pay it.
Here is a fact: Passing Bill C-234 and offering an exemption to the carbon tax for propane and natural gas would save farmers close to a billion dollars by 2030. That is a billion dollars that farmers now have to pay the Liberal government, when they are already paying record-breaking input costs on feed, fuel, fertilizer and many other inputs. We found out early last week not only that the billion dollars is being taken out of the pockets of farmers by the Liberal government but also that the GST is being charged on top of the carbon tax.
We have all known that, so we have been putting private members' bills forward. My Conservative colleague has put forward a private member's bill to remove the GST from the carbon tax. However, we now know the numbers, and they are staggering. The GST on the carbon tax alone cost Canadians almost $500 million last year. By 2030, it will be a billion dollars. Cumulatively, over the past several years and by 2030, Canadians will have paid $6 billion for GST just on the carbon tax, not on every other good and service they use. It is no wonder that Canadians cannot afford to put food on the table, put fuel in their car and pay their mortgage. Certainly, it is no wonder that farmers are struggling every single day. They are looking to these types of pieces of legislation that would offer them some financial relief.
The next fiction of the Liberals is that there are commercially available alternatives to propane and natural gas on farms, especially when it comes to heating and cooling barns. We know that is not true. Electric heat pumps are not going to heat a 100,000-square-foot chicken barn that is built with state-of-the-art technology. The Liberals should be applauding Canadian farmers for what they are already doing.
Here is another fact: The average global emissions that come from agriculture are about 26%. In Canada, the emissions that come from agriculture are 8%. This is a stat that we should be applauding every single day. It shows what our farmers are doing to ensure that they are the strongest environmental stewards of their land, soil and water. However, instead of being a champion for Canadian agriculture and applauding what farmers are doing, the Liberals are punishing them with the carbon tax and defending it every step of the way.
There are no other commercially viable options. There is no way to change behaviour for farmers who need natural gas and propane to heat their barns and to grow their food in greenhouses.
During the recess, we had three or four days in southern Alberta when it was -37°C. I guarantee everyone that a heat pump was not operating and not sufficient to ensure the health and safety of cattle, pork and poultry in those operations. However, at -37°C, those farm families are still out there making sure that we have quality, affordable food to eat every single day.
Here is another fact: The amendments we are discussing today, which were passed by the Senate, were already proposed by the Liberals in the House of Commons at the agriculture committee. Those amendments were voted down by the elected members of that committee. We have gone through this discussion but, again, fiction.
This is not about viable options for the Liberals. This is about trying to kill a bill that would provide a carbon tax carve-out for farmers.
Another fact is that, in his food report study, Professor Sylvain Charlebois at Dalhousie University reported that policies such as the carbon tax on farmers are going to increase the wholesale cost of food by 34%. Again, these are costs that are being put onto the backs of farmers, but, down the road, they will impact Canadian consumers who are struggling to put food on the table every single day.
We have two million Canadians accessing the food bank in a single month. It is unbelievable that this is happening in a country like Canada.
This is a discussion about fact and fiction, and I want to thank the members of the opposition parties who have stood by facts. They have stood by Canadian agriculture and the importance of growing affordable, nutritious food here in Canada. I hope they will continue to stand with us on Bill C-234 while the Liberals focus on fiction.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time that my colleagues have allowed me to discuss the study from the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, entitled “Grocery Affordability: Examining Rising Food Costs In Canada”.
I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, who has done a great deal of work on this subject specifically and certainly on the importance of the grocery code of conduct, for example, to try to address food affordability issues for Canadian consumers.
I feel it is important to discuss this study here today because of some information that has come out most recently regarding food inflation and food costs for Canadians. When we completed this study in June this past spring, there was some pretty difficult information for Canadian consumers to hear on the increasing costs and increasing questions and concerns around affordability for Canadians and their inability to feed their families. However, that has become even more acute with the information that has come out recently regarding Canada's food price report, which came out last week. It revealed that, in 2024, Canadian families will pay $700 more for groceries than they did the previous year. Even the work we did on this initial study last spring is now almost out of date and obsolete, as food prices have continued to rise. We see now that food inflation will go up again next year between 5% and 7% depending on the commodity we are purchasing.
As part of this study, we were waiting for an additional report from Dalhousie University and Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. The executive summary on the results of his study says that he and Dalhousie University have forecast that inflationary pressures and uncompetitive policies, like the carbon tax, on growing, processing and transporting food will increase the cost of wholesale food by 34% on average for all food categories by 2025.Thirty-four per cent is the increase in food costs that Canadian consumers are going to be facing over the next two years. This comes at a time when we have about two million Canadians relying on a food bank every single month, and when one in five Canadians is skipping meals because they cannot afford to put food on the table.
However, I think the stats we heard in this study are even more concerning. As part of this study, we had testimony from Daily Bread Food Bank and Second Harvest. Their testimony was that, due to the dire situation, according to their figures, “food banks and other food-related programs across Canada served [5.1 million] people per month last year”. I know we are talking about two million Canadians relying on a food bank every single month, but when we include other food insecurity programs, like Second Harvest, that number goes to more than five million Canadians who are using a food security program or charity like a food bank every single month. Now, as a result of the additional information we have been provided, we are going to see higher food prices, up to maybe 34%.
Again, from testimony from the Daily Bread Food Bank and Second Harvest, they are expecting the number of people using food banks and other food-related charities to climb to 8.2 million Canadians, which is roughly a 60% increase. Can members imagine that, because of inflationary policies and policies like the carbon tax, in Canada, where we have the ability to not only feed our own residents but help feed the world, we could have more than eight million Canadians relying on a regular basis on food banks and food charities to be able to feed their families? I find it to be unfathomable that in Canada we would be seeing those types of numbers. I hope everybody in the House will see those numbers as absolutely shocking.
The Conservatives put forward a number of recommendations last June that we asked the government to follow-up on to try to address some of these concerning trends we are seeing. I would like to mention a couple of the recommendations we put forward that I thought were quite specific and would go a great way in addressing this crisis we are facing.
Recommendation 1 said, “That the Government of Canada remove the carbon tax that is applied to all food inputs and production including all farm fuels and other...aspects of the food supply system.” Recommendation 2 was that the Government of Canada complete an economic assessment on the impact of the carbon tax and the clean fuel standard, carbon tax 2, and how this increase will affect the cost of food production, the price of food and the entire food supply chain. Recommendation 3 said, “That the Government of Canada immediately reverse its policy on front-of-package labelling.”
There is only one thing we missed, which I think we would have added as a fourth recommendation had we known about it at the time. We now know the Liberal government is putting a ban on plastic food packaging, particularly for fresh fruit and vegetables, which will add an additional $8 billion to food costs. I want to really stress this point to everyone in the House and anyone who may be watching. This plastics ban is not the single-use plastics ban that the government has now been forced to reverse as a result of the decision at the court because it is unconstitutional. This is another ban on plastics.
I want Canadians to picture this. As a result of this plastics ban on fresh fruit and vegetables, Canadians will be unable to purchase products they rely on, essential products they purchase every day, such as prepackaged salads, cucumbers and bananas. Many of these products are transported to Canada from outside of our country. We do not grow bananas in our climate. We have not quite gotten there with greenhouses. Because of these plastic packaging rules, companies outside of Canada will not upend their systems to meet an incomprehensible rule that they do not want to meet and cannot meet. Canadians will be going to the grocery stores and seeing empty grocery store shelves because we will no longer be able to import these products.
The secondary concern, as a result of front-of-pack labelling and this plastics ban adding another $14 billion in costs on the food industry, is that Canadians are going to see skyrocketing food prices. We see the stats from Dr. Sylvain Charlebois on the carbon tax and other policies driving up food costs by 34%, and now we will add on other layers of bureaucracy. It is nonsensical and not based on science. The fresh produce industry cannot meet this deadline being imposed on it.
At the same time, the Liberal loyalists in the Senate did everything they could to kill Bill C-234, which would save Canadian farmers $1 billion by 2030 on the carbon tax. We heard the Prime Minister in question period today basically questioning the carbon tax bills that farmers are sending us every single day. He said he does not think they are being forthright on what their carbon tax numbers are; he thinks they are too high. He should go out to every farm in Canada that is spending tens of thousands of dollars a month on carbon taxes to heat and cool barns, dry grains and operate family farms. These are the real-life consequences of the government's policies on carbon taxes and the impact they are having on everyday Canadians' ability to feed their families.
I thought it was very important that we have an opportunity to address the study we tabled last June and try to update some of the numbers in the study that have now become obsolete as a result of the new data that has become available. Food prices are not only going up 5% to 7%. As a result of the data and the studies that have been done and as a result of the Liberals' carbon tax and other punitive policies, such as front-of-pack labelling and the ban on P2 plastics, Canadians are going to find it much more difficult to feed themselves, and millions more Canadians are going to be relying on food banks and charities.
After eight years, the Prime Minister is simply not worth the cost.
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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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Mr. Speaker, I agree with the agriculture minister. Our plan is definitely not to bankrupt farmers and continue to make food unaffordable. Canadian farmers are struggling under punishing input costs such as the carbon tax. In fact, often the carbon tax costs them more than the natural gas they use. Bill C-234, a common-sense Conservative bill, is the solution, but the Prime Minister is blocking his senators from passing this bill in the Senate.
Will the Prime Minister follow his 2001 campaign promise to pass it forward, and let this bill pass the Senate to finally take the carbon tax off farmers, families and first nations?
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Mr. Speaker, a common-sense Conservative bill, Bill C-234, would save farmers close to a billion dollars, but the Prime Minister, who is demanding his senators block this bill, is not worth the cost. The Kielstra farm in Okotoks paid $180,000 in carbon taxes this year. When the Prime Minister quadruples that tax, it will be $480,000, just in carbon taxes. There is no way, when two million Canadians are relying on food banks, that we can afford to not have affordable, nutritious Canadian-grown food.
Will the Prime Minister finally remove the carbon tax from families, farmers and first nations?
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Madam Speaker, I enjoy working with my very respected colleague on the agriculture committee. There is no question that Canadian farmers understand the changes in climate more than just about any Canadian, as they are certainly at the front lines of that. However, my argument today, in highlighting some of the issues in this report, and yesterday with Bill C-234, is that I do not believe that a carbon tax on Canadian agriculture and Canadian farmers is going to resolve issues when we are talking about the environment and climate change.
I have talked to many farmers. Paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in carbon tax does not allow them to invest in the new innovation and technology that will help reduce their carbon footprint and emissions.
I think we should be incentivizing farmers to do those things, not punishing them with a carbon tax.
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Madam Speaker, I move that the first report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, presented to the House on Wednesday, February 2, 2022, be concurred in.
I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex.
I want to concur in the report from the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food on food security that looked at processing capacity in Canada with a particular focus on food security. I believe there is some very pertinent information in the report, which I would encourage all members of the House to take the opportunity to read if they have not done so.
There are a couple of things in this report that I found interesting on how things change quickly. For example, in the government response to our report, there is a line that says, “The Government recognizes that the Report focuses on ensuring that a secure supply of food will be available to Canadians”. Budget 2019 states that “one in eight Canadian households currently experience food insecurity, meaning that they are without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food.”
Now, that was in 2019, here we are in 2023, and that number is no longer one in eight, that number is now one in five. One in five Canadians are skipping meals because they cannot afford to put nutritious and healthy Canadian-produced food on their table. I think that is a statistic for all of us in the House that shows the devastating impact that Liberal government policies have had on everyday Canadians who are just trying to feed their families and make ends meet, pay their bills and carry on with their lives.
The focus of this report, and why I want to highlight it today, is about food security or, more specifically, food insecurity. I cannot help but go back to the debate we had yesterday on Bill C-234, which was a common-sense Conservative legislation that would enhance food security for Canadians. It would be making farming more affordable for Canadians, which was a critical element of this study.
However, what was not included in the study, and I want to highlight that as well, is that, at the time, we did not have definitive data on the impact the carbon tax was having on Canadian agriculture. For example, the Parliamentary Budget Officer reported that Bill C-234 would save Canadian farmers close to $1 billion by 2030. We have a report here talking about food security. These elements would have been a very welcome part of the analysis and recommendations, as well as the impact that the carbon tax policy is having on Canadian farms and harming their ability to ensure that Canadians have nutritious and affordable food on their tables.
The report highlighted the importance of innovation and technology to ensure that modern Canadian agriculture could meet demand and meet its responsibilities. Again, with Bill C-234, we are highlighting the fact that there are no commercially available and viable alternatives for Canadian farmers across the country who are heating and cooling their barns and drying their grain, other than natural gas and propane. When I talk about the Parliamentary Budget Officer report and the fact that Bill C-234 would save Canadian farmers close to $1 billion on a carbon tax exemption, that is only on natural gas and propane.
Ironically, gas and diesel already have an exemption and so really, with Bill C-234, what we are trying to highlight is correcting an oversight, which I believe the Liberal government inadvertently made on its initial price on pollution climate change policy when it made an exemption on gas and diesel but did not include an exemption on natural gas and propane. I believe that when the Liberals developed their price on pollution legislation, or carbon tax, they did not include natural gas and propane because I think they just did not have a clear understanding of what agriculture is and the energy sources that the agriculture sector relies on every single day.
This report highlighted the importance of technology and innovation. Farmers are doing that every single day by ensuring that their farm buildings and barns are as energy efficient and state of the art as possible. In fact, one of the farm families who were here last week, who met with members of Parliament and actually participated in a bit of a rally on the Hill and at the Senate, just built a new state-of-the-art chicken barn in southern Alberta, at a cost of more than $3 million, but it is powered by natural gas because there is no other alternative in rural Alberta. Despite using a very clean-burning fuel, they paid $180,000 this past year just to heat and cool that barn. When the Prime Minister quadruples his carbon tax, they will be paying $480,000 a year just to heat and cool that barn.
I have that study here in my hand where the government provided its responses on the importance of food security. I guess I would ask if perhaps we should be updating this study because I am not sure how we can even talk about food security when farmers cannot remain in business.
This particular farmer, who built a new poultry barn, told me that he could not afford these higher taxes. He really only has two choices. One choice is to somehow pass on those additional costs to the consumer. Again, the question arises about food security when Canadians are already facing record-high food inflation. That is only going to get higher as the carbon tax increases. His other choice is to shut down, to close up his farm and his agriculture operation, which again would impact food prices because that means less product on the store shelves and higher prices.
Another interesting fact about this study is that it talked about a concern of Dr. Charlebois, a professor of food and supply chains at Dalhousie University. He mentioned that we are seeing a number of Canadian agriculture and agri-food businesses stop their investments in Canada and Canadian operations. He said, “They're now leaving the country because they can't capitalize any projects as a result of...increasing fees. The competitive environment here in Canada is not...attractive.”
As a result of the carbon taxes, red tape and bureaucracy highlighted in this study, we are seeing Canadian farms declare bankruptcy or shut down, but also that agri-food businesses are picking up and leaving to more friendly entrepreneurial and business jurisdictions. The result of that, again, as we were talking about in Bill C-234, is that they are carbon taxing Canadian farms out of business, but then they are forcing Canadian consumers to purchase food imported from foreign jurisdictions. That causes two problems. One, it has a significant carbon footprint through moving, for example, tomatoes or mushrooms all the way from Mexico into southern Ontario, or fruit and vegetables from California into Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Two, it is a problem when we use foreign-grown products that do not have the same environmental standards we have here in Canada. There is a real significant problem when those food products are cheaper to import from Mexico, Brazil or Venezuela, when we should be able to produce them right here in Canada.
I wanted to share some of those facts that are highlighted in this report and just how much it is apropos to what is going on with our discussion yesterday about Bill C-234. When this study was published, one in eight Canadians were facing food insecurity. Four years later, it is now one in five.
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Mr. Speaker, farmers from across Canada are calling on Liberal-appointed senators to support a common-sense Conservative bill, Bill C-234, which would lower costs on farming and make food more affordable, but the Liberals' environment minister has threatened to resign if there are any carbon tax carve-outs. This is amazing when we have a record-shattering two million Canadians relying on food banks.
The environment minister's dedication to making life unaffordable is unwavering. Will the Prime Minister ask his environment minister to stop threatening so-called independent senators and allow the passage of Bill C-234, so Canadians can afford to feed themselves?
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I hate to do this to my colleague, and I do appreciate what he is trying to do here, which is to talk about anything other than Bill C-234 and its impacts on Canadian agriculture and the carbon tax farmers are paying. I would really appreciate it if, at some point in his 20-minute speech, he would at least hint at or even mention Bill C-234 and the fact that Liberal senators are doing all they can to block the legislation in the Senate. This motion today is about it that, and I would appreciate it if he would address it.
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