- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Foothills
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $161,345.02
- Government Page
- Jun/10/24 2:38:07 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I can see why the Liberals do not want to answer this question. The Prime Minister tried to sell this fairytale, which is that Canadians are better off paying the carbon tax, to Canadian mayors last week. He got booed off the stage. Even big city mayors know that the carbon tax is not worth the cost. It fuels homelessness and food insecurity. Food banks are saying that visits are up 50%, and they cannot even keep up with demand.
There is a secret Liberal report that shows that the Liberal carbon tax is not worth the cost. Will the Prime Minister table that report and the carbon tax cover-up, and admit to Canadians that the carbon tax is all pain, no gain?
126 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/10/24 2:36:46 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, Canadians are not buying what the Prime Minister is selling because they know that the carbon tax is not worth the cost.
Canadians cannot put gas in their cars or food on their tables. They know the real pain of the carbon tax, and so does the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who confirmed that the Liberals have an economic analysis of the carbon tax that shows the real pain of that tax, but they refuse to release it. I wonder why. Maybe it is because it confirms what Conservatives and Canadians have been saying all along, which is that the carbon tax is not worth the cost.
Will the Prime Minister unmuzzle his budget watchdog, table the report and admit to Canadians that the carbon tax is all pain, no gain?
132 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/21/24 9:51:08 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his focus on housing. He talked about removing the GST from apartments and building, but if Liberals are so focused on reducing the costs for builders, developers and Canadians, why are they charging the GST on top of the carbon tax? Why in this budget did they not remove the GST from the carbon tax entirely? That would lower costs for every aspect of the supply chain and encourage builders, developers and trades to lower their prices because the consumer is not being taxed on a tax and double-dipped with the GST being charged on top of a carbon tax.
108 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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?
124 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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.
1555 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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?
113 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/26/24 2:31:48 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, after eight years, the Liberal-NDP Prime Minister is not worth the crime, the corruption or the cost.
Common-sense Conservatives will axe the tax because the NDP-Liberal carbon tax coalition has failed. It has not hit a single emissions target.
Do members know who has succeeded? Farmers. According to the Global Institute for Food Security, the carbon footprint for wheat grown in Saskatchewan is 67% lower than the rest of the world.
Why is the Prime Minister punishing Canadian farmers for this incredible accomplishment? Instead of blaming farmers for his carbon tax failures, will he not axe his plan to increase the tax on April 1?
110 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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?
133 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/1/24 2:35:06 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, today the Conservatives tabled a motion asking the NDP-Liberal carbon tax coalition to cancel its plans to increase the carbon tax on April 1.
After eight years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost, and farmers' tax bills prove that. The numbers are staggering.
Prairie Gold Produce in southern Alberta is paying $1,500 in carbon taxes every single day. That is unsustainable. It has no option but to pass that onto consumers.
Will the Prime Minister finally axe his plan to increase the carbon tax on April 1 and make food and farming more affordable?
100 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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?
102 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/13/23 4:37:21 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I am very thankful to my colleague, who has always been a strong advocate for Canadian farmers and certainly his constituents in Saskatchewan.
This is why I find the comments of the Prime Minister today in question period so offensive. He said that farmers are not telling the truth about the cost of the carbon tax and said that 97% of their carbon taxes are covered. That is completely false.
Unlike most any other industry, Canadian farmers pay the carbon tax over and over again, from the rail lines when they transport their grain to the trucking companies when they move their cattle to the shipping companies when they are moving other commodities and buying fertilizer, fuel or feed. They pay it every single time, and those prices and increased costs are passed directly on to consumers.
139 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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?
104 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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.
148 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/28/23 3:49:24 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, a couple of the Liberal colleagues today have put out this statistic that 97% of farmers are exempt from the carbon tax. That is completely and utterly false. We know that the vast majority of farmers pay much more in carbon taxes than they would get in any rebate. In Bill C-8, which I am sure my colleague is referring to, the average farm gets about 15% to 20% back on its carbon tax. However, there is no exemption on natural gas and propane, which we are talking about today.
Can my colleague please table with the House the document that states that 97% of farmers are exempt from the carbon tax? I would love to see where the Liberals come up with that number.
128 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, it is good to see the agriculture minister stand up and defend Canadian farmers, but if the finance minister's plan for Canadians is to cut meals and cut their heat, well, mission accomplished, their carbon tax plan is working extremely well.
A common-sense Conservative bill, Bill C-234, would provide a carbon tax carve-out for farmers and make food more affordable for Canadians, but the Prime Minister's environment minister has promised that if this bill passes he will resign. Is that why the environment minister is bullying senators in the Senate to block Bill C-234? Is it because he wants to save his job rather than ensure that Canadians can afford to feed themselves?
121 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, we are not saying to do less. Rather, we want to see things that bring results. The carbon tax, which the Bloc wants to radically increase, has done nothing. The Liberals have not met a single emissions target they have set. Flooding and forest fires are still happening.
Taxes are not the answer, but research, innovation and new technology are, and industry has been doing this for years. We will get there, and we want to get there, but we also have to be realistic about how we get there. To say that we are going to end all fossil fuels tomorrow when 3% of our energy comes from renewables is not realistic. Where would the other 97% come from? That is what we are saying.
We need to support these industries, which are world class and world leading, with the highest standards on the planet. That is how we will get there, not by being ideological and shutting down these critical industries.
165 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Sep/19/23 2:52:07 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, farmers cannot afford the Prime Minister. On Friday, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that by 2030, Canadian farmers will be paying close to $1 billion in carbon taxes alone, carbon taxes that are driving up inflation. Do members know who is paying for that inflation? It is Canadians. Canadians are literally paying the price. The cost of apples is up 61%, carrots are up 72% and potatoes and oranges are up 77%.
Will the Prime Minister axe his plans to quadruple the carbon tax so that Canadians can afford to feed their families?
103 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/6/23 2:54:18 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the carbon tax is fuelling food inflation as grocery prices are up another 10%, costing Canadian families another $1,000 a year just to put food on the table. Canada's Food Price Report predicts that food prices will go up a stunning 34% over the next two years.
That is not even the bad news. That does not include the implications of the Liberals' second carbon tax, a carbon tax that would add 61¢ a litre to the price of gas, which will increase the cost of food production and transportation.
How much more will Canadians have to pay to feed their families when the Liberals implement a second carbon tax?
115 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/18/23 2:44:11 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, here is the problem: The minister has no idea what impact carbon tax 2.0 is going to have on the cost of food: the cost to farmers, the cost to transport that food, or the cost for Canadians to actually buy that food.
The first carbon tax is already sending Canadians to the food banks in shocking numbers. The number of trips to the food bank is up 60% from 2003. That is eight million Canadians going to the food bank every single month.
How much will Canadians have to pay to put food on the table when the Liberals implement carbon tax 2.0?
108 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague, but the fallacy is in his question. Adding taxes, whether it is a windfall tax or a higher tax on the highest earners, does not reduce the costs. If I were to increase the tax on a company, is that company all of a sudden going to reduce its prices? No, it is not.
The fastest solution is to eliminate the carbon tax. That will eliminate those three cents that the member is saying his producers are worried about. Imagine, the NDP is supporting the Liberals and increasing the carbon tax. In B.C., people pay the carbon tax on any natural gas and propane imported from Alberta. They do pay it, and they pay the GST on top of that.
If the member wants to make life more affordable for the producers and farmers in his riding, the solution is scrapping the carbon tax.
156 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
