- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Foothills
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $161,345.02
- Government Page
- May/23/24 10:07:48 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party has a supplementary report attached to this study. I believe it is disingenuous for the study not to include the direct impact that some policy from the Liberal-NDP government is having on price inflation, such as the quadrupling of the carbon tax and the P2 plastics ban, which will increase the cost of food by 54%.
Therefore, we particularly see this impact with food. In addition, impending policies such as front-of-pack labelling will also increase the price of food. We know that 25% of young people are relying on food banks and that others are dumpster diving for their dinner.
I think it is very important that we include every aspect and every impact of food inflation, including bad policy from the Liberal-NDP government, which is included in the dissenting report by the Conservative Party.
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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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- Mar/18/24 2:45:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my constituents are fully aware that Liberals are taking away $2,900 and giving them back $1,800. That is not revenue-neutral.
Here are the facts. The Liberals are increasing the cost of food, yet again, on April 1 by increasing the carbon tax by 23%. This is driving Canadians to food banks in unprecedented numbers. The Caring Cupboard food bank in Prince Edward Island is struggling just to keep its doors open. It cannot handle the increase in demand, which is up 70%, 5,500 families.
I know the Prime Minister is bored, but will he listen to Canadians and axe the tax so that Canadians can put food on the table?
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- Mar/18/24 2:44:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, the Liberal Prime Minister is just not worth the cost for Canadian farmers. On April 1, the Prime Minister is going to increase the carbon tax 23%. The impact on Canadian food production is staggering. A grain farmer in Simcoe County paid $36,000 in carbon tax in one month. The carbon tax cost a poultry farmer in Alberta $180,000 last year.
The food professor, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, advised the Liberals to spike the hike or see wholesale food costs go up 34%. Food production is no joke. Will the Prime Minister spike the hike so farmers can afford to grow food?
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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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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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- Oct/27/23 11:21:06 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals do not care about food costs or affordability.
Canadians are struggling to put food on the table after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government. Almost two million Canadians accessed a food bank in March. That is up 79% from March 2019. A third of those people using food banks are children. Almost 20% of Canadian families are food insecure.
A Prime Minister who is in desperation mode is not worth the cost. Again, the Prime Minister has admitted his carbon tax is unaffordable. When will he axe that tax for all Canadians, so they can afford to put food on the table?
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- Oct/16/23 3:07:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, broken Liberal promises and Liberals making light of the food crisis do not put food on the table. Many Canadians are starving because of the Liberals' broken promise to lower food prices by Thanksgiving. That is not what happened. Food prices are up 7% over last year.
The Prime Minister promised to lower food prices by Thanksgiving dinner. He failed and it is another broken promise.
Will the Prime Minister promise to lower his out-of-control spending so that Canadians can afford a Christmas dinner, or will that be another promise broken?
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- May/18/23 2:44:11 p.m.
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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?
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- Dec/14/22 3:07:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have found a solution to record-high food inflation. It is to wipe the stats away from existence. We have record, 40-year high inflation, food prices are up 11%, and more than half of Canadian families are worried about their ability to put food on the table.
What is the Liberals' solution? It is to erase more than 25 years of historical food inflation data from the StatsCan website. The Liberal government, which pretends to make decisions based on science and data, has erased 25 years of vital inflation information from the website. Why?
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- Nov/15/22 2:57:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, food inflation is at a 40-year high. Canadians are struggling to feed their families. The Liberals' response: “Let them eat cake.” If they cannot afford food, they can cancel the Disney subscription. I cannot even buy a pack of bacon for $13.
When fruit and vegetable prices are up 12%, bread 13% and pasta 30%, the Liberals are out of touch, and it is only going to get worse. If we think these prices are tough to swallow, thanks to the Liberals' escalator, the tax on beer, wine and spirits is going to triple.
Will the Prime Minister give a sober second thought to his new taxes on food?
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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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- Mar/21/22 3:29:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, entitled “Supplementary Estimates (C), 2021-22”.
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