- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Foothills
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $161,345.02
- Government Page
- May/23/24 2:11:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years, the Liberal-NDP government is not worth the cost to Canadian farmers. This time, it is cutting funding to one of our most successful volunteer organizations. For 111 years, 4-H Canada has been teaching Canadian youth about community, farming and leadership, but in one of his first moves, the Liberal agriculture minister celebrated this incredible milestone by slashing funding to 4-H by 30%. This has forced it to restructure and put incredible programs, such as the Citizenship Congress, at risk. 4-H'ers learn by doing, working hard to promote sustainable agriculture and teach Canadians about where their food comes from.
Conservatives understand the importance of Canadian agriculture and being a champion for Canadian youth, who are going to be driving innovation and future economic growth. That is why a future Conservative government will reverse the Liberal funding cuts to 4-H by diverting millions of dollars from Agriculture Canada, because our priority is not going to be useless consultants; our priority is Canadian youth programs, such as 4-H.
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- May/2/24 4:59:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really want to correct some of the facts in my colleague's speech. He is saying that Alberta has made it impossible to develop renewable energy. In my riding in southern Alberta, there are three solar projects and close to 600 wind turbines. We are very proud of our renewable projects.
To ensure my colleague has his facts straight, we put a pause, which has now been lifted. Why we did so is that 75% of the renewable projects that have been built in Canada over the last few years have actually been built in Alberta. However, close to 25% to 30% of the agriculture land in Alberta was identified for wind turbine or solar projects, which would put food production at risk.
Does he not think there has to be a balance between building renewable energy projects and ensuring that we protect agriculture land and arable land for food production?
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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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- Mar/21/24 2:43:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, Canadian farmers are at their wits' end, and the Prime Minister and his Liberal-NDP carbon tax coalition are not worth the cost. Instead of preparing for a new growing season, farmers are bracing themselves for another carbon tax increase on April 1. The Agriculture Carbon Alliance surveyed 50 farms and found out they were paying more than $320,000 a month in carbon taxes. That is just 50 farms. There are almost 200,000 farms in Canada, and the punishment is going to get that much worse when the Prime Minister increases his carbon tax by 23% on April 1.
Will the Prime Minister give farmers a voice and allow a carbon tax election?
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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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- Feb/13/24 2:05:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today is Canada's Agriculture Day. It is a time to celebrate our farmers, ranchers and producers. Canadian agriculture and agri-food play a critical role in Canada's economic prosperity, producing local quality food for families in Canada and around the world.
It is also important to note the fact that Canadian farmers set the world standard in sustainability and stewardship. In fact, a tonne of Canadian wheat can travel around the world 3.5 times before it has the same carbon footprint as wheat grown in Europe. This is an incredible achievement, one which should be applauded, and our farmers should be rewarded for their innovation. Instead, farmers are being punished with higher carbon taxes and regulations that are based on activism and not science.
As Conservatives know now more than ever, our farm families need advocates, people who will celebrate their accomplishments. I encourage everyone to learn more about where their food comes from and thank those farmers who put quality local food on our tables every day. I wish everyone a happy Canada's Agriculture Day.
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- Dec/13/23 4:17:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I move that the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, presented on Tuesday, June 13, be concurred in.
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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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- Nov/29/23 4:47:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is great to have the agriculture band here and everyone here in the House today participating in this. I appreciate that.
I will just highlight one thing that I think will answer my colleague's question. During COVID, the federal government worked with the provinces to eliminate interprovincial trade barriers and allow harmonization of regulations, which allowed provincially certified processing plants to have the same standing as federally certified processing plants. It works very smoothly.
I think we can easily do that again, which would encourage those local processing plants to expand and grow and reduce our dependency on just three plants.
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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, last year, almost six million Ontarians visited a food bank, an increase of more than 40% and the highest single increase ever recorded. Clearly, this Prime Minister's carbon tax plan is not worth the cost.
Conservatives have a common-sense bill, Bill C-234, in the Senate, which would reduce costs on farmers and make food more affordable for Canadians, but the Prime Minister is blocking this bill, forcing Canadians to food banks.
Will the Liberal minister of agriculture do his job? Will he defend Canadians farmers, and phone Liberal senators to support Bill C-234 to have this carve-out for farmers and make food more affordable for Canadians?
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Mr. Speaker, certainly it is a frustrating argument that this is an ag-gag law. The wording of the amendment would protect whistle-blowers or anyone who is there lawfully and with supervision, so to say this is an ag-gag law is completely wrong.
Let us back up a little on what the goals are of these so-called whistle-blowers. I have a quote from PETA, which says, “Ending speciesism is our ultimate goal. One strategy to end speciesism would be to end the use of animals as food.” PETA also says, “I consider all [animal]-eating cannibalism.” The Humane Society said, “I can assure you that when we go to Mars, it will be a vegan planet.” To say that these protesters are coming on farm just to highlight the mistreatment of animals is completely misleading. Their one and only goal is to end animal agriculture and raise a lot of money in the process. This is not about whistle-blowing; this is about ending a critical industry in Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, I certainly have a lot of respect for the hon. member. I enjoyed our time on the agriculture committee together.
He is exactly right. This would put the agriculture industry in line with most other industries in Canada. People cannot simply walk onto a dangerous auto assembly line or into a manufacturing plant. People cannot just walk into a dangerous situation without the proper training, supervision and attire. This is exactly what we are trying to do with this.
Unfortunately, there seems to be this mentality out there that people should be able to walk onto farms, protest on farms or sit on farms and take videos and pictures. They really do not understand, because of the misinformation and misappropriation of what agriculture is, which makes this so frustrating, is that it is doing much more harm than they had intended.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals have had a carbon tax in place for many years, and yet I do not see grocery store prices going down. I do not see life becoming more affordable for farmers.
When I talk to farmers, their number one issue is not climate change. Their number one issue is Liberal government bureaucracy, red tape and carbon tax. It is the biggest stress in their lives.
Farmers in Canada do everything they possibly can to reduce their emissions. That is the thing the Liberals miss. They continue to punish Canadian farmers instead of rewarding them for what they already do. Instead of comparing them to Europe and asking Canadian farmers to get to where Europe is, they are thinking about this backward. What they should do is say they will help get Europe to where we are, with precision agriculture, zero till and 4R nutrient stewardship. Those are the things Canadian farmers are doing, and Liberals had better start recognizing that.
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- Sep/20/23 2:57:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, once again, the Liberal agriculture minister claims that farmers support the carbon tax. How out of touch can a minister be? Only 2% of Canadian farmers think the Liberals even support agriculture, because they know that the Prime Minister is unaffordable.
Farmers cannot afford to pay close to $1 billion in carbon taxes. They cannot afford it when diesel goes up 70¢ a litre. They cannot afford to pay more in fertilizer and feed and higher interest rates.
Does the Liberal agriculture minister truly support quadrupling the carbon tax on farmers, truckers and processors, knowing the consequences mean higher food prices for Canadians?
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- Sep/19/23 2:53:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad the new Minister of Agriculture still believes that farmers support the carbon tax. He is up for a rude awakening.
The previous agriculture minister said it is not like we can pass a law that will reduce the price of food. I have great news: She was wrong. The Prime Minister can reduce the cost of food right now by axing his inflationary carbon tax, which is driving up costs for farmers, processors, truckers and Canadian consumers.
Inflation is up another 4%, and a quarter of Canadian families are skipping meals because they cannot afford food. How much will Canadians have to pay to feed their families when he quadruples the carbon tax?
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- May/18/23 2:42:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would to encourage the Minister of Environment to go talk to a farmer, because I have not spoken to a single one who supports the first carbon tax, let alone carbon tax number two.
The agriculture minister admitted yesterday that she has no idea what impact carbon tax 2.0 will have on farmers or the cost of food. Here is what we do know: When the Liberals triple their first carbon tax, fuel goes up 41¢ a litre, diesel goes up 15¢ a litre, and the cost of food goes up 34%. When they implement carbon tax number two, the cost on fuel goes up 61¢ a litre and diesel 25¢ a litre.
Could the Minister of Agriculture confirm that coloured farm fuel would be exempt from carbon tax 2.0?
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Madam Speaker, I am not too sure what the question has to do with my presentation on the budget. I do not think the bill the member is talking about impacts how we farm. It is a trade issue.
The importance of what he is addressing, what we have learned through COVID and some of the issues that the Liberal government is causing, is that we are losing the trust that we have with our most important trading partners. As an example, when Germany and Japan came to Canada asking for help with LNG so that they could cut their cord with Russia, the Prime Minister turned his back and said there was no business case for that. That is an embarrassment for our country and for us on the global stage.
Canada must use our agriculture and energy as the geopolitical tools that they can and should be.
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