- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Cypress Hills—Grasslands
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,746.42
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, it is fantastic to be able to rise once again on behalf of the great people of the province of Saskatchewan, particularly the people in the southwest corner, whom I have the privilege of representing.
Right off the top, I want to just talk about the month of May, which is MS Awareness Month. One of the big asks of the MS community, in particular by MS Canada, is to have the government fund $15 million towards research on the disease, as well as the prevention and repair side of things, for people who suffer with MS.
Normally, I do not get up to ask the government to spend more money, because we know the Liberals are fantastic at spending boatloads of money and accomplishing nothing with it. However, in this particular case, we know that there is over $3.4 billion in costs to the government and in lost wages by people who suffer from MS. A $15-million investment would actually result in a tremendous amount of savings for the government for the taxpayer. It would also result in a higher quality of life for people who suffer from MS.
I just wanted to start off my budget speech by mentioning that. If the Liberals were truly listening to what Canadians want and would like to see, this is something that they could have included in this budget to make sure that they are actually working to better the lives of people in Canada. Canada has the highest rates of people who suffer from MS in the world, with my wife being one of those people as well.
I could not help but notice in the budget that there is a very small amount listed for agriculture. In fact, I believe that agriculture is first mentioned on page 131 of the budget, and it continues for the next page and a half.
One of the issues in the budget concerns the livestock tax deferral. I just want to talk about that briefly, because a lot of ranchers in my riding have been dealing with droughtlike conditions for the last number of years, which is nothing new. We live in southwest Saskatchewan, a part of the country where rain has never been a feature. It is not something that we regularly get, so it is not new for us to have droughtlike conditions.
There is a government program called the livestock tax deferral. What happens is that the local RM has to declare a state of disaster. Then the government takes a look at the rainfall and the forage percentage over the year to see if it has fallen below 50%, I believe. There is quite a process involved in implementing or triggering the livestock tax deferral. Clarification around that would go a long way to help producers to have more certainty in their industry. An issue too, though, is that the livestock tax deferral can only be used for one year. We know that, in Saskatchewan, it sometimes takes more than one year for one's pasture to regenerate. A lot of producers and organizations, such as the Canadian Cattle Association and the Saskatchewan cattle association, are saying that allowing the livestock tax deferral to be used over a period of three years would actually be a lot more beneficial. It would allow for better environmental protection and for pastures to be able to regenerate.
My riding name is Cypress Hills—Grasslands. The “grasslands” part of the name comes from the fact that we have some of the largest amounts of still untouched native prairie grass in my part of the country. It has not been broken up. It has been grazed for years. Buffalo used to be the keystone species there; they have since been reintroduced to the grasslands. Cattle have done a tremendous job of being the keystone species in the grasslands.
For ranchers who have native prairie grass on their ranch, in their rotation, it is of huge value to them to be able to preserve that grass. When ranchers sell their herd, they will get the one-year livestock tax deferral. If they are forced to rebuy and to spend more on cattle to get them back on the land, there will be a degradation of that land. Having a three-year window would actually allow for the pasture to properly regenerate. Even if there is only a small amount of rainfall, that three-year time window would allow for better regeneration of the pasture. The environment would be taken care of in a way that would allow producers to purchase cattle, regraze the land once again and keep that keystone species on the land as well.
That is something that would happen with the livestock tax deferral. If the government were truly listening to the producer groups it mentions in the budget, then that is something it would actually be talking about and looking to implement. After nine years, it definitely has not done that.
One of the other parts about it, which actually took up about a page of the page and a half in that, is the government's commitment to starting consultations, once again, on interoperability. It is really funny that this is in there. I had the privilege to sponsor Bill C-294, which is an act to amend the Copyright Act for interoperability. There are many fantastic short-line manufacturers in Saskatchewan, and quite frankly all across this country, that make great agricultural products. They also make products for other industries, but I am going to focus on the agricultural side of it.
It is funny that this section is included in the “Affordable Groceries” section of the budget. The government is finally realizing that when agriculture is treated with respect and producers are allowed to grow food in the most economical way, if we let them have a choice, they will be able to grow food in a more efficient manner, which, in the long run, is going to have a positive impact on the price of groceries and hopefully lead to groceries being more affordable.
However, Bill C-294 was tabled over two years ago and still has not received royal assent. It did pass this House about a year ago now, and nothing has been done with it so far. In the 2023 budget, the government said it was going to start consultations then. It still has not done it. In 2024, it is once again committing to starting consultations, in June. It has a specific time frame in which it wants to start consultations, but given its previous track record of not doing it, we will wait and see what actually happens.
What would be even better is if Bill C-294 were able to get royal assent. My bill passed the House of Commons unanimously. When it went through committee stage, we were able to accept a friendly government amendment to the bill, which put it a bit more in line with some of the government's priorities but with the law as well. This is important because we want as much certainty as we can possibly get, even though we had done some legal work in the buildup to the bill. We accepted that friendly amendment. This is a bill that is non-controversial, but it is something that would get things done. It would have a whole-of-economy effect and impact.
If the government wants to go through consultations, I am going to make it even simpler. What the government can do is go back and read the report that was done by the government branch that used to be called Western Economic Diversification, which is now PrairiesCan. The government can go back and read the report, which was released in 2020, on this very issue. What it will find in that report is the economic impact that agricultural manufacturing has across the entire country. This is not just a southern Saskatchewan issue; this is a whole-of-Canada issue.
The government can read that report. It can see the dollar value assigned to it. It can see how every single province benefits from it. It is a nation-building exercise. It does not even have to do the consultations; that has already been done. The government department already did the report. The government can read it. The consultations are done.
We are counting on the Senate passing and giving royal assent to Bill C-294 as quickly as possible.
If the government wants to impact the price of groceries, what it could also do is have this House pass Bill C-234 in its original form. It came back from the Senate with a huge amendment that gutted the original intent of the bill, which was to put an exemption in place for all on-farm buildings for all types of fuel, which is important when we consider greenhouses, dairy barns, chicken barns and pig barns. There is a huge level of cost that goes into running those facilities with the carbon tax, so passing Bill C-234 in its original form would have a huge impact on the Canadian economy. It would have a huge impact on the price of food.
Removing the carbon tax in its entirety would be beneficial as well, when we look at the transportation costs and the costs to the grocery stores. It is a huge detriment, so scrapping the carbon tax altogether would also be of huge benefit, and I do not see any of that in the budget either.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. The Liberals have known for a while now that their carbon tax is a scam, but they refuse to give it up. Their latest idea is to rename it, telling Canadians that it is a good thing that they raise the tax again on April 1.
The Liberals keep ignoring what Canadians have been telling them for years, and they are still offside with their coalition partners in the NDP, who voted with Conservatives to at least give our farmers some relief from the carbon tax cash grab. Instead of reducing costs for the farmers and for the people buying their food by passing Bill C-234, the government would rather work to prevent this tax relief from happening.
There is no reason to think the Liberals are interested in fixing what they have broken. If they get their way, their carbon tax will be higher and higher year after year, even though the minister admitted he is not measuring whether it is reducing emissions. Conservatives stand ready to stop this nonsense. Canadians can count on us to axe the tax and to bring the much needed relief they deserve.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal government is out of touch, and it is Canadians who are paying the price. That is exactly what we are seeing with the carbon tax. It has a negative effect on everyone in different ways.
I would like to focus on the farmers who grow the food. They are seeing some of the worst impacts of the carbon tax. As time goes on, farmers and ranchers face higher input costs, including on the fuel they need to use. They are getting crushed by rising fuel costs and are caught in the unfair position of absorbing costs at each and every stage of production.
That is why Conservatives brought forward a common-sense solution that we thought would receive the support of all parties. Bill C-234 would provide an exemption from the carbon tax on all on farm fuels. Everyone supported the idea and voted with us, except for the majority of the Liberal caucus, of course. Most of them voted against it, but fortunately for Canadian farmers, Bill C-234 passed in the House of Commons anyway. That was back in the spring. Eventually, the bill reached third reading in the Senate.
However, it seems that the Liberals cannot accept that their coalition partner, the NDP, supported our bill. At the last opportunity, some senators appointed by the Prime Minister have been trying to shut it down. There have been delays in passing it, and more recently, amendments have basically gutted Bill C-234. This is right in line with the Liberal approach to this bill. If they cannot stop it from passing, they want to at least make sure it will provide the least amount of benefit possible to the farmers who grow our food. We know that the activist environment minister does not want any more carve-outs to his carbon tax, no matter how much it hurts Canadians.
I originally called on the Prime Minister to tell his appointed senators to stop the blocking of Bill C-234. It seemed likely that the environment minister or the Minister of Agriculture might respond in question period, but instead, it was the Minister of Innovation, who I know is a very influential member in his caucus and cabinet. There are rumours that he might want to be the next leader soon. I hope that he will use his influence to exempt farm fuels from the carbon tax or, better yet, axe the tax altogether. I would even suggest that, if he includes that in his leadership race bid when the time comes, he might be the one to come out on top.
The situation with Bill C-234 has changed in some ways, but there is still a chance to pass it as the House of Commons intended. That needs to happen so that we can provide relief to our farmers and make a difference for Canadian families. It is not too late to fix the problem, if the Liberals really want to do that, but that is the question: What do they really want to do?
Week after week, I have been bringing up different examples of how much the carbon tax is crushing farmers and ranchers, but the Liberals are not going to support giving them some relief if they do not want it to happen. Is that part of the plan? Are they trying to make farming unaffordable, especially for the up-and-coming new generation of farmers? l hear about this regularly in my office, when I host town halls or when I am out buying groceries. It is amazing how many people talk to me about the situation with their families, with their sons or daughters wanting to take over the farm and what that is going to look like, or what the costs of that are going to be, especially after eight years of the Liberal government. The fact is that everything is costing more and more.
Is there a future for young producers? That is at the heart of this. That is at the heart of why Conservatives want to pass Bill C-234. It is to get a carve-out for all on farm fuels, for both the farmers of the present and the farmers of the future. I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary could confirm his support to repeal the carbon tax for all on farm fuels, as Bill C-234 was originally written and intended to do.
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Madam Speaker, I previously asked a question about Bill C-234 and the exemption to the carbon tax that it would provide. My question has changed a bit because, earlier tonight, the Senate passed an amendment to exclude barns and buildings on farms from the carbon tax exemption. I will read the part of Bill C-234 that the Senate is now going to scrub from the act, which is in paragraph 3(3.1)(f), “property that is used for the purpose of providing heating or cooling to a building or similar structure”.
The environment minister went to the Senate and basically exerted his influence on the senators to get them to strip this bill bare; that way, it would provide a limited exemption for farmers. Farmers grow the food and have done way more to protect and steward the environment than the government will ever have a hope of being able to accomplish. That is what the government has decided to do. It was aided by the deputy leader of the progressive Senate group, the hon. Pierre Dalphond, who was the mover of the amendment that has stripped that part of the bill to exempt buildings and barns from the carbon tax. This is absolutely ridiculous.
Let us go back to when the carbon tax was first put in place and do the calculations on it. There are many farmers, ranchers and cattle feeders who use over 100,000 litres of on-farm fuels in a given year. Given the rate of the carbon tax right now on those on-farm fuels, that would be about $25,000 a year. The Liberals will say that there is a huge exemption for farmers and ask what everyone is complaining about. There is an exemption that applies in some cases, but not in every case, and certainly not for farmers and ranchers who are trying to keep their barns warm in the winter. As we know, winter is already here; it will be -30°C very soon. In the summers, it gets up to +30°C. With the wide variance in temperatures all across Canada, various temperature controls are needed in barns and shops for farmers to do their jobs.
If we think about the Prairies, with the snowstorms and blizzards that they regularly get, especially in calving season in February and March, farmers quite often have to bring their cattle into the barn. That way, they can calve without the threat of the animals being buried in snowbanks or freezing to death, never mind the threat of predators going after them and using the weather conditions to their advantage. A very important part of agriculture is farmers having these barns and buildings, yet the Senate has decided to gut this important key in the bill. It did so under the pressure that was put on it by the Liberal government, which is absolutely shameful.
When we look at the approach the government is taking, it is almost as though it were trying to reduce agriculture's impact and footprint in such a way that it will chase people out of the industry, much like what is happening in the European Union and other parts of the world. They have literally forced farmers and ranchers to reduce their herd sizes and the amount of crop they are able to grow.
What the government is doing is ridiculous. It is being aided and abetted by certain members of the Senate, and it is absolutely disgusting.
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Mr. Speaker, farmers know they are the leaders when it comes to environmental stewardship.
Just imagine we are young producers. We have grown up on the family farm and our goal is to take over after our parents retire. We start looking over the bills and costs associated with farming and one of the highest line items is the carbon tax imposed by the Prime Minister. Rather than hiring a helping hand or upgrading our machinery, we are paying an increasing carbon tax.
Therefore, why will the Prime Minister not let his senators pass Bill C-234 and axe the tax for on-farm fuels?
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Mr. Speaker, the fastest way to provide more affordability for Canadians would be to pass Bill C-234.
We have the receipts to show just how much the carbon tax costs farmers who grow the food. The natural gas bills for different months from a Saskatchewan farmer show that one month without grain drying is $135, but one month with grain drying is $6,400. That is why the House should pass Bill C-234 to give farmers tax relief.
Who does the Prime Minister think should pay that ridiculous cost: the farmer who grows the food or the families who are struggling to put food on the table for their kids?
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians know that after eight years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. People see it on their grocery bills and farmers who grow the food see it while paying for their fuel. A young producer showed me his propane bill for grain drying from the start of harvest. In the span of just 12 days, it cost him $950 in carbon tax alone, and the harvest was just getting going. He is still waiting to see the final bill from drying his crops.
Will the Prime Minister tell his appointed senators to stop delaying Bill C-234 and axe the tax for the farmers who grow our food?
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Mr. Speaker, it never ceases to amaze me how clueless the agriculture minister is about the real-life costs of agriculture. One reason is that ranchers buy their fuel at outrageous prices. One rancher just showed me that his propane costs are over $1,500 a month. The carbon tax is a third of that cost. The quarterly rebate cheque does not even begin to add up to that much let alone to other costs for gas and diesel. This is all a tax on growing our food, which makes it more expensive to buy the food.
The Prime Minister needs to quit telling his appointed senators to block Bill C-234. When will the he back off so we can finally remove the carbon tax from all on-farm fuels?
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Prime Minister, the NDP-Liberal government has finally admitted that it not worth the cost and that the carbon tax is hurting Canadians.
A farmer in southern Saskatchewan shared his carbon tax costs with me. He goes through 150,000 litres of diesel on his farm every year. At over 15¢ per litre, he is paying $24,000 in carbon tax on diesel fuel alone. There is more. The GST gets added on top of that, bringing the total to just under $25,000, but there is still more. The NDP-Liberals will quadruple that number for him, and he will be paying $100,000 a year just on the carbon tax for diesel fuel, thanks to the radical Prime Minister.
Canadian families will pay more for groceries as well, yet the Liberals do not seem to care. They broke ranks with their NDP coalition to vote against common-sense Conservatives who would remove the carbon tax from farm fuels. Now, there are senators, appointed by the Prime Minister, who are trying to shut it down at the last minute. The Prime Minister needs to stand with Canadian families and producers, and tell his senators to stop blocking Bill C-234.
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