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Context: House Hansard - 114 - Oct/20/22

Nov/17/22 12:25:31 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-32

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise and represent my constituents of Foothills on this important discussion today on the fall economic statement. We have heard from the government since this statement was released, and we have certainly heard in many of the speeches over the last few days, that the Liberals are bragging about being fiscally responsible and having fiscal discipline when it comes to this statement. I do not know too many Canadian families, or Canadian businesses for that matter, that would define fiscal responsibility and fiscal discipline, in a time of economic crisis, as increasing spending and going further and further into debt. That is not the right definition of fiscal discipline. Canadian families across the country are struggling to heat their homes, struggling to feed their families and struggling to operate their businesses and their farms, and the Liberals' response to that is to continue inflationary spending at a record pace. We have seen inflation at a 40-year high, with many Canadians having to make difficult choices when it comes to their food choices at the dinner table and in their everyday lives. When the Liberal government talks about making difficult choices, I do not think it really understands what the average Canadian is having to endure when it comes to those difficult choices. A difficult choice for an average Canadian family is not the difference between cancelling one's Disney+ subscription or having a decision to make on which $7,000-a-night room they stay in when they are in London. The difficult choices Canadian families are having to make right now are about whether they are going to be able to put their child in sports, whether they are going to be able to pay the grocery bill this month, or what sacrifices they are going to put into their family budget so they can afford to pay their mortgage this month and not lose their home. It just shows the contrast in how out of touch the government is when it talks about difficult choices being only $40 billion in new spending to add to the $200 billion in additional debt that had nothing to do with COVID, in comparison to the tragic choices Canadians are having to make every single day just to try to get by. Like, I would hope, many colleagues in this House, I found it quite tragic when I heard 1.5 million Canadians had to rely on a food bank in the month of March alone. That is a 35% increase over that same month prior to COVID and a record number of Canadians relying on a food bank. Those are the difficult choices Canadians are having to make, so when the Liberal government says it is practising fiscal responsibility and fiscal discipline by adding record debt to further spur record inflation and higher interest rates, those actions are having real consequences for real Canadians. For example, I am now hearing from farmers across the country who, because of these higher interest rates, are unable to manage the debt on their farms. It was already at a record high, and these interest rates are making that situation much worse. Certainly I have heard from constituents who are saying their mortgage has gone up $500 a month and is crippling. My colleague, who I do respect, from Kings—Hants mentioned his conversation with his constituent, who said her rent is now at $1,500 a month. He said he is hopeful she will get the $500 rent relief. More than 60% of Canadians will not actually qualify for that rent relief program, and I would ask my colleague, if his constituent does qualify for that $500 a month one-time rent relief cheque, what she is going to do in January, February, March or April, when she is no longer getting that government cheque. Canadians need long-term solutions, not a little band-aid for the hemorrhaging of their financial futures. As a result of this, the Liberals have not been able to offer the most basic services, despite these massive increases in spending. Canadians are not seeing any bang for their buck, as we see an inability to get passports and a 2.4-million backlog in immigration applications. We have seen the veterans affairs minister under fire for the backlog in veterans' benefits. Zero infrastructure projects have been completed from the infrastructure bank. All of these things are having an impact on Canadians, who do not see the benefit of these increases in spending. I want to get back to the impact this is having on the average Canadian and talk about Canadian agriculture as well. We talk about food inflation being at a 40-year high and the impact it is having on Canadians' everyday ability to buy groceries and put healthy food on the table. Considering that Canada is one of the countries that exports 80% of what it produces when it comes to food, it is frustrating to see these record-high prices. The cost of bread is up 17%; flour is up 24%; a head of lettuce is up 21%; potatoes are up 17% and pasta is up 30%. As I have said before, these are not luxury items that one would get at a Liberal cocktail party. These are the staples that Canadians rely on every single day to feed their families, and they are no longer able to afford those critical staples. Inflationary spending, a tripling of the carbon tax and a fertilizer tariff are driving up the price of food, because they impact every aspect of the supply chain. Those prices are difficult to swallow, but because of Liberal policy they are going to get worse. The fall economic statement did not say anything about listening to Conservatives and putting a cap on tax increases. The Liberals are moving ahead with tripling the carbon tax. That is only going to further drive up the cost of food. The Liberals' undemocratic escalator tax is going to increase the tax on beer, wine and spirits by 30%. When the Liberals put in the escalator tax, they said they would index it to inflation. This tax is undemocratic because it does not come back to the House of Commons for debate and automatically goes up every single year, but when the Liberals put in the escalator tax, inflation was around 2%. They felt the industry would be able to absorb that, but no one could foresee what was going to happen this fall, when inflation was in excess of 10%. As a result of that, the escalator tax is going up more than 6%. That is significantly higher than what the industry was able to absorb year after year. When our restaurant and hotel industry is struggling as a result of coming out of COVID, this puts a further burden on cost. This is going to severely impact our wine and beer industry, certainly craft brewers, who bring incredible economic development to rural communities, but also to farmers, who grow the barley and grapes for those products. This is going to impact them as well. This is a 30% increase on their costs, which they are going to have to pass on to the consumer. This is an undemocratic tax that is now going to further cripple our agriculture industry and have a massive impact on Canadians and consumers alike. Conservatives asked the Liberals to put no new taxes in the fall economic statement. We are facing a financial economic crisis and for them to continue to pursue the tripling of the carbon tax is nonsensical, especially when food security is probably the number one issue we are facing, not only here in Canada but around the world. When we need our agriculture sector firing on all cylinders in order to reach its full potential to meet the needs here in Canada and around the world, putting these further burdens on Canadian farmers makes zero sense. We already know that the carbon tax costs the average farmer about $45,000 a year. I have a propane bill from a farm family in St. Thomas, Ontario, for one month, and the carbon tax was more than $11,000. In one month, it was $11,000. Thanks to the opposition, the Conservatives, with the support of the NDP and the Bloc, Bill C-234, which will be a carbon tax exemption on propane and natural gas, got through committee, so farmers will get some relief. We need that bill to pass. We desperately needed the Liberals to put resources aside to establish a vaccine bank here in Canada for Canadian agriculture. We will no longer be allowed to rely on the United States for vaccines for livestock. We have seen the impact the avian flu has had on the Canadian agriculture economy. Foot-and-mouth disease and African swine fever will have more than a $45-billion impact on our industries if we do not have the resources in place in Canada to address them. Conservatives are asking for $4 million to establish that vaccine bank, which was not in the fall economic statement but which I know every stakeholder has pushed the government to do. We need these critical resources to protect our food supply, food sovereignty and our agriculture industry in Canada.

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Oct/20/22 2:16:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, food prices are up 11% and Canadians are struggling to put healthy food on the table because of Liberal inflation. The Liberals could throw Canadian families a lifeline by cancelling their planned tax hikes on food, fuel and home heating. Instead, it seems the Liberals are determined to increase the cost of living with bad policies like failing to establish a Canadian vaccine bank for foot and mouth disease, putting out entire livestock industry at risk; by forcing front-of-pack labelling on manufacturers; by failing to give deemed trust to our fruit and vegetable growers; by putting a tariff on fertilizer and farms; and. now, tripling the carbon tax on farms and every aspect of our food supply chain. Grocery prices are at a 41-year high and 1.4 million Canadian kids live in households with food insecurity. Canadian families can no longer afford the Liberal government. There is hope on the horizon. A new Conservative leader, who does think about monetary policy, will end the Liberals' unjust inflation and ensure every Canadian can put affordable food on their table.

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Jun/16/22 9:11:06 p.m.
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Madam Chair, my colleague has incredible experience in agriculture. One of the other things we have been talking about today is the impact the carbon tax is having on Canadian farmers. The idea of that is to transition farmers into using a different fuel for grain drying and heating barns and buildings. What other fuel source are the Liberals asking farmers to transition to? Does it actually exist?

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Jun/16/22 8:17:59 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, the minister talked in his speech about the importance of fertilizer. Not only is it access to fertilizer, but I think the other issue about fertilizer is affordability. We have seen the cost of fertilizer in many parts of the country go up 100%. Canada is the only G7 country on the planet that is charging a 35% tariff on Russian fertilizer. Many times we have asked the Liberal government to exempt that tariff on fertilizer purchased before March 2. We now know that this tariff is costing Canadian farmers about $150 million a year. The minister just mentioned that the government gave $100 million to the largest mining company on the planet when they have record fertilizer revenues, not to make increased production at this fertilizer plant near Saskatoon but to ensure that it uses electric vehicles. Would he not agree that a better use of that $100 million would be to provide compensation to farmers for their own fertilizer tariff?

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Jun/16/22 7:22:20 p.m.
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Madam Chair, he is exactly right. Through this illegal invasion of Ukraine, Canada is seeing we have two very important geopolitical tools in our tool belt, and those are energy and agriculture. We should be doing everything we possibly can to build those two industries up to play a critical role around the world. Unfortunately, the government is taking a much different approach to those two critical areas. I found it quite interesting that the Liberal government, after the invasion, said that we needed to increase oil production by 35,000 barrels a day. It has been doing everything it can to cancel out that industry, and it is not like it can turn around on a dime. I will tell the House why. Most of our drilling rigs have left Canada. Most of our best and brightest in the energy sector in terms of labour have left Canada, and they are not coming back just because the Liberals say they are going to temporarily increase energy. I just find it so hypocritical that we have been trying to say for years how important agriculture and energy are not only to Canada's economy but also to global security, and now they are finally waking up when we see a conflict in Ukraine.

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Jun/16/22 7:20:40 p.m.
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Madam Chair, if farmers can find ways to be efficient and more cost-effective while protecting their land and improving their yields, they will do it. They use fertilizer as efficiently as possible through programs such as the 4R stewardship program. To my colleagues's question, it is critically important that, if farmers are using less fertilizer, yields will go down. It is a simple fact. When we are facing a global food crisis, that is not direction we want to go. The Liberals have also said that they want a 30% reduction in fertilizer emissions, whatever that means, but what it means is we we are asking Canadian farmers to use less fertilizer when they are doing it as efficiently as possible. In Canada, we are 70% more efficient in fertilizer use than any other country on the planet. I will say again that is a great success story for Canadian agriculture. It is something we should be embracing and not criticizing.

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Jun/16/22 7:19:07 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I am really happy that my respected colleague asked that question because it gives me the opportunity to reiterate the fact that there is, what I will call, a misconception that Canadian agriculture is the problem, when I would profess that Canadian agriculture is the solution. We have seen how Canadian farmers have improved their operations and the technology and innovation that has happened. I spoke about gene editing. There are seed varieties that are drought resistant and pest resistant. This has allowed us to grow higher yields on the same amount of land with a fraction of the inputs. Whether it is spray, fuel, zero tillage or precision agriculture, we are making those advances, and we are doing that without having to pay a carbon tax. That is what I say is an incredible success by Canadian agriculture.

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Jun/16/22 7:17:13 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I had the honour of travelling to Guatemala a couple of years ago before COVID with the World Foodgrains Bank. What is really impressive with programs such as that is that it is not necessarily always about the money. It is about going to those communities and teaching them how to grow their own food, providing them with the assets, resources and technology they need to grow their own food and become self-sustaining. To my colleague's question, I absolutely believe that Canada has a pivotal role to play in financial commitments to food security around the world, but rather than indexing that or hitching it to something, it is more important that we leverage those federal dollars with the private sector and NGOs to make those countries more self-sustaining.

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Jun/16/22 7:15:36 p.m.
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Madam Chair, my colleague is exactly right. We now know that this is going to cost Canadian farmers about $150 million. We support sanctions against Russia. It is very important that it is held accountable for its illegal actions. However, we do not want those actions to be paid for on the backs of Canadian farmers. We have asked the Liberal government to exempt that tariff on any fertilizer from Russia that was purchased before March 2. Another alternative was, at the very least, to provide compensation to farmers. Rebate that tariff on fertilizer to Canadian farmers that was purchased before March 2. However, in both of those cases, the Liberal government has refused to step up and help Canadian farmers.

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