- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Cypress Hills—Grasslands
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,746.42
- Government Page
- May/29/24 2:15:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it gets more and and more obvious just how out of touch the NDP-Liberal government is. After nine years of the Prime Minister's high spending and tax hikes, Canadians can barely afford necessities. That does not matter to the NDP-Liberals, who want to hike the carbon tax by 23%, and they want to keep on raising it, year after year.
Only Conservatives understand that Canadians need a break. With summer approaching, people are trying to make plans to go out and see all the wonderful destinations we have to offer in southwest Saskatchewan, places like the Jean Louis Legare Regional Park in Willow Bunch, the Great Sand Hills in Leader or maybe Harvest Eatery in Shaunavon. That is why this summer we are calling for the removal of the carbon tax, the federal fuel tax and the GST on gasoline and diesel until Labour Day. An average of 35¢ a litre taken off gas prices would save Saskatchewan families up to $850 this summer.
Even if the NDP-Liberals refuse to support this common-sense initiative, Canadians can be assured that after they vote in the carbon tax election, Conservatives will remove the carbon tax for good.
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- Apr/11/24 11:57:22 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-50, which can be summed up in one short sentence: It is an act to promote Liberal friends to fancy boards and to destroy the economy of western Canada. There is an obsession by this radical socialist environment minister to push his not-so-hidden agenda on Canadians, to wipe oil and gas production off the face of the earth and ensure that we all live in energy poverty.
If members do not believe me, they can listen to his own comments. He said that fossil fuels must be phased out by 2050, and even earlier if possible.
Let us contrast that statement with some comments from Japan’s ambassador to Canada about the role we could be playing in the world’s future energy mix, in particular when it comes to LNG: “The world is waiting for Canada...Canada can and should play a very important role to support the energy situation not only in Japan and South Korea, but the world.”
When it comes to Canada, we are the closest market to Japan and South Korea that could be providers of clean, sustainable and affordable LNG. Canada has a natural advantage in producing LNG, because of the naturally colder climate that we have for more than half of the year. Japan and South Korea are trying to find ways to avoid being energy-dependent on nefarious players like the Communist regime in Beijing. As the Japanese ambassador said, we have an important role to play, but the world is still waiting.
Look around the rest of the world, and we can see what other options there are available to us for selling our LNG. Last year, we saw Germany, Italy and France sign long-term LNG supply agreements with Qatar, but only after they came to Canada asking us to be their provider of choice. They came to us because they did not want to go to a country with a deplorable human rights record, like Qatar. They did not want to go to a country that is housing the leaders of Hamas, but, because of the minister’s blind and radical loathing of our world-class energy sector, he said no. The Liberals left those countries with no choice but to basically support the enemies of one of our most important allies, Israel, and in February it was announced that India and Bangladesh are signing agreements, and so has a Chinese company as well.
It is a shame, because if we look at the way the world is right now, there is both a moral case and a business case for producing and exporting Canadian energy, in particular our LNG, but the Liberal government does not get it. We have a radical environment minister and his incompetent Prime Minister, who apparently would rather see energy deals go to a country that houses the head of Hamas than to Canada, with our high standards for things like human rights, high regulatory standards and an abundance of supply.
How does that make any sense?
When the government stands against Canadian energy, we are not doing the world any favours. At the same time, it also hurts a lot of people in our own country, who benefit from having a successful energy industry here at home. There are so many communities that rely on the oil and gas industry for their survival. It is the industry that keeps the lights on at the hockey rink, at the community centre and at the seniors centre, and that pays the royalties and taxes that are needed to invest in things like hospitals, schools, libraries and emergency services.
Here in Ottawa, if we walk down the street across from Parliament, there is a good example of two different billboards, one after the other, that highlight the social benefits of the oil and gas sector. The first billboard says that Canada needs a fully funded Canada disability benefit. The second billboard is a message from Canada Action, and it says, “As Long As The World Needs Oil & Natural Gas Shouldn't It Be Canadian?”
Why are those two billboards related? It is because the royalties and the tax dollars that are raised when the energy sector is going strong fill the government coffers with the necessary money to invest in those types of social programs. They cannot exist or succeed in the first place without generating a significant amount of revenue from our energy sector.
As much as the NDP-Liberals keep trying, we cannot get away with spending money that we do not have. Sooner or later, it runs out, and bad things start to happen, like some of what we are seeing now with inflation. As we know, the Prime Minister does not have the type of common sense or self-control as the Conservative leader, the member for Carleton, to be able to implement a one-for-one policy, whereby for every new dollar of spending the government has to find a dollar of savings.
As such, when the government sets out to destroy the very industry that massively funds government programs and the equalization payments that prop up Quebec, everyone loses. That includes indigenous communities as well.
Natural Law Energy is a company made up of a group of first nations in Saskatchewan and Alberta. They wanted to invest in the Keystone XL pipeline expansion so they could increase their cash flow, which would support their people. It would have been a great opportunity for economic reconciliation. Do members remember when the Prime Minister claimed that no relationship was more important to him than the one with first nations? Apparently, he said that for his own political gain, because once he had a chance to put his words into action, he was nowhere to be found, other than to say that, no, they do not get to participate in the economy or have any economic self-determination and reconciliation.
Then there are the thousands of jobs and economic spinoffs that come from having a robust oil and gas sector in an area. There was a local news headline in my riding recently that read “April Oil and Gas Public Offering Shows Kindersley Area Generated $234,074.68 in Revenue”. That is just from one public offering. It does not include all the wages of workers in the area or the money they are spending in their community.
This past winter was like every other winter across the Prairies, and we had some strong cold snaps. More urgently, there was a period of time when Alberta was sending warnings to its people to reduce their power consumption to avoid rolling blackouts during peak times when the temperature was in the -40°C range.
How could this happen to a province like Alberta? It had an NDP government that drank the same Kool-Aid as the radical environment minister and decided to close down the reliable, affordable baseload power and replace it with expensive, intermittent wind and solar power. The irony is that it was not due to a lack of wind. There is enough wind most days to produce power. The issue was that it was so cold that it was not safe for the turbines to operate. I have actually worked in the wind industry, and I know that actually happens, because it happened all the time on the wind farm I worked at. Quite often, in the winter, it was also overcast, and the days are short, so there was next to no solar capacity that was actually available. The previous NDP government in Alberta literally almost killed people because of its radical ideology.
Thank God that Saskatchewan had the ability and the capacity to fire up Boundary Dam Unit 4 to be able to help provide power to our neighbours. Thank God that our province has invested in natural gas power stations like the Chinook Power Station in Swift Current, which can provide the equivalent baseload power to hundreds of thousands of homes. If the Liberals’ radical agenda is allowed to proceed, this is only going to be the beginning, and this is just a snapshot of what we can expect. The Liberals have this idea that any new natural gas has to be phased out by 2035 too, if not sooner.
I met with some of the turbine suppliers, and they were willing to tell me some of the timelines to get the parts needed to build a plant now. In some cases it might take up to 10 years to get all the parts they need to build a power plant. It is the same story about trying to procure solar panels and wind turbine equipment, because there is minimal manufacturing in North America for that equipment and that industry as well. However, in order to comply with the regulations that the government is rolling out, they have to be in operation before 2035. Simply ordering the power plant prior to the deadline is not good enough. Canadians are at serious risk of being plunged into widespread energy poverty, but the Liberals know that. The regulations that are published in the Canada Gazette told us that the people most at risk or most likely to already live in energy poverty are single mothers and seniors living on a fixed income, and those regulations would disproportionately impact those people.
The Liberals also know the devastating unemployment that their transition is set to cause. The natural resources minister received a memo discussing exactly that. The Liberals' own government document says that their so-called just transition will affect over 200,000 workers in the energy sector. That is listed as 1% of our employment rate and, with how unemployment numbers are already rising, we really cannot afford for that to keep going up.
The memo also happens to mention 292,000 workers in agriculture and 193,000 workers in manufacturing. Does anyone really believe that the Liberals are going to replace hundreds of thousands of jobs on the line?
Combine all this with the carbon tax, the Liberal fuel regulations, the emissions cap regulations and other burdensome regulations like the unconstitutional Impact Assessment Act, and it is quite easy to see the place where the Liberals are trying to take us. Their plan punishes Canadians, and it will bring misery and devastation upon them.
Thank God that there is an election on the horizon, in which Canadians can give this radical socialist environment minister the boot and get Canada back on track with a Conservative government that would axe the tax and fix the budget so that Canadians can get back to living in prosperity instead of poverty. Canada can become an energy-independent country that no longer relies on imported oil from dictators. We can use our own resources to produce what our country needs and what the world needs: clean, affordable, ethical and sustainable Canadian energy. Only a Conservative government would get it done.
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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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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, 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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- Mar/31/23 11:34:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as farmers look to begin seeding, input costs are top of mind. They have already been losing tons of money under the carbon tax, but the Liberals are going to raise it again at midnight tonight.
What makes it worse is that the Minister of Agriculture voted this week against an exemption for on-farm fuels. Even the Liberal chair of the agriculture committee voted with the Conservatives. He gets it, so why does the minister keep voting against farmers but is supporting the increase in the carbon tax at midnight tonight?
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- Oct/24/22 12:09:12 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, I was talking about an amendment that was in there previously, so I have touched on the bill, but sometimes the truth does hurt.
I will finish with my example, quickly. When it comes to these lithium projects, we are missing the opportunity to source them tariff-free in that three-year window because of the impact assessment project. We were told in committee it would take approximately 10 years to be able to get a project going because of the Impact Assessment Act, so it is very important to have that issue raised when we are talking about this bill because we are talking about the environment.
As much as the Liberals want to talk about Canada leading a new industry of critical minerals for a green economy, the time frame, as I just referred to in that example, is an obstacle to starting these new projects. The government has spent a lot of time talking about how we have an abundance of raw materials for this emerging sector. Canada has what it takes to successfully compete in the global market for electric vehicle batteries and other products, and there is a lot of potential there if it works out.
It has always been true that our country is blessed with having so many natural resources. It is the economic foundation of our prosperity. The Liberals point to critical minerals as the answer to reducing emissions, creating new jobs and strengthening our position through an energy transition, but how can it happen if it takes too long to review and approve, for example, mining projects? All the minerals will stay in the ground.
The Liberals see an opportunity in front of them, but their own policy will make us watch on the sidelines as it passes us by, and they will sabotage their own environmental plan. The delay makes it all but impossible to get ahead of the curve and be competitive. I will take this opportunity to remind the government, once again, that stakeholders told us this when we were studying the subject at committee. This is what happens when the government does not listen or respond to practical feedback from industry. It is counterproductive.
I have already raised this issue with the minister, but the government has not acknowledged it and has not shown a willingness to reconsider what it is doing. Unless we take a different approach to development, one that is compatible with protecting the environment, this is a problem that will continue to hold us back. It will remain a lose-lose scenario.
There is another example of this that is closer to the subject of the amendment. Under the new fuel regulations, the government wants to rely on expanding the production of biofuels Again, it offers it as a solution for both the environment and our future economy. This would increase demand for crops like canola, and we are advised farmers should produce the higher yields required without using more land to do it, which remains to be seen.
However, this creates an incentive in a market dynamic for farmers and ranchers to switch to producing biofuel crops. That is their decision to make, and rightfully so, and many will probably want to do so because of the prices and other factors. It is not explicitly part of the regulation or the policy behind it to favour biofuels, but the reality is that we will have people breaking up natural grasslands to start growing these crops that offer higher returns. This is something I have already seen across southwestern Saskatchewan in my riding, and also elsewhere.
These are sensitive ecosystems, which could be the sort described as a vulnerable environment, as we see in Bill S-5, but this is a vulnerable environment at risk from environmental policy instead of toxic substances. If there is a strong incentive to break them up, they will no longer be conserved, as is currently being done, by farmers. After that happens, we will never get them back. As a result, we would also lose carbon sequestration and the other benefits grasslands and similar areas provide.
If we are trying to protect the environment, we cannot consider it in isolation, as though it is something opposed to industry. This is a real example where economic activity has brought added benefits to sensitive ecosystems. For a long time, the agricultural sector has preserved and revived the grasslands. It is in its best interest to do so. This fact has been recognized and included in conservation efforts, but now we are starting to disrupt the balanced relationship that exists, and that would have a negative impact on the environment.
This all goes to show the danger of something that sounds good as an environmental policy but does not care as much about consistency or consequences in the real world. It can interfere with climate goals and cancel itself out. With Bill S-5, it would be unfortunate if something like that happened again in an unforeseen way. It is why we need to carefully consider the details and feedback we are getting from stakeholders when we hear them at committee or when we are back home in our ridings.
Finally, the bill itself provides a right for anyone to request an assessment for whether a substance is capable of becoming toxic. This opens a wide door for the department to take in a large number of assessments outside of its regular work. We have seen how Liberals manage federal services and how easily those have been overwhelmed, whether it was with processing passports over the summer or the backlog of air travel complaints.
There is room for improvement in this bill, and we hope any remaining concerns will be resolved.
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Mr. Speaker, I would submit that going back to yesterday where there is no carbon tax would mean that groceries, food, heating, energy and gas would all be cheaper. It would means things would be more affordable for Canadians. That is the crisis that we are going through right now, an affordability crisis.
Over the next number of years the carbon tax will go up, and the clean fuel standard will kick in, which is also going to add another couple cents per litre, and going forward that will also increase, putting another burden on Canadians, consumers and how we transport our goods across this country.
Those are things we cannot afford that are pricing Canadians out of the grocery store, out of their homes and into a situation where they have to choose between heating or eating.
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- Apr/25/22 4:39:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's good comments about Saskatchewan and how we export the most of any province to the rest of the world. He is very right in that. We have a lot of great products.
One thing I found interesting when he was speaking was when he talked about canola crops. We have a government policy directive right now to reduce fertilizer emissions by 30%, and the government has hinted it is aiming toward reducing nitrogen fertilizer emissions. Nitrogen fertilizer is the most common fertilizer type used to grow canola, which is one of the most important elements of the government's biofuel agenda going forward.
I am wondering how the member plans to increase canola crop production while simultaneously reducing the fertilizer use that is so necessary and important for that crop.
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