- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Regina—Lewvan
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $123,656.05
- Government Page
- Feb/6/24 7:51:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, our Liberal colleague just gave us a glimpse into the Liberal psyche. She said we never talk about the rebates when it comes to the carbon tax. My colleague from Battle River—Crowfoot hit the nail on the head: We do not have to give the money back to Canadians if we do not take it in the first place.
My colleague mentioned a couple of really great things when it comes to Conservative principles. Another one is Margaret Thatcher. She said the best thing I have ever heard about socialism: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” That is what the Liberal government is starting to do. We cannot tax Canadians into oblivion and then wonder why they cannot afford food. We have taxed Canadians so much. That is why there are two million Canadians lined up to go to the food bank.
Does my colleague agree that Liberals would not have to give so much money back to Canadians if they were not taking it in the first place?
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- Feb/6/24 7:46:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, time and time again, we hear from the Liberals and the NDP, the costly coalition, that the government is doing well. They speak numbers about where they are at, according to other OECD countries, when it comes to GDP or debt-to-GDP ratio.
We heard in Saskatchewan, under the socialist NDP for so long in the 90s, that the government was doing well.
If this Liberal-NDP costly coalition is doing so well, why are Canadians hurting so much?
Why is food bank usage at two million people per month?
If the government is doing so well, why have Canadians never had it so bad?
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- Feb/6/24 7:35:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today we got an Order Paper answer for the Conservative member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, which said that the Liberal government is not even tracking how much the carbon tax is reducing emissions. It really is mind-blowing that the Liberals have a flagship policy but are not tracking it to see whether it is successful or not.
What I am hearing from people on the ground is that they believe that the fact of food price increases because of the carbon tax is not a flaw but a feature of the Liberal-NDP carbon tax. They believe this is what it was intended to do, because they do not realize what the policies are that actually affect farmers, and how much they do so. I do not believe that the NDP and Liberal members thought the carbon tax would go up to $15,000 for a 5,000-acre farm in Saskatchewan, but that is the effect it has had. Just imagine when the carbon tax goes to $170 a tonne. What is that going to do to consumers across Canada when they go to buy groceries?
Farmers are price-takers. Input costs are going up and up, and they see a government that wants to keep kicking out their feet, instead of giving them the opportunity to be successful, by putting policies in place.
I am so proud of our agriculture producers. There is a study by from the Global Institute for Food Security, out of Saskatchewan, that said our producers create fewer emissions than any other comparable jurisdiction in the world. Agriculture in Canada produces 8% of our total emissions. We should be trumpeting that at every international event we go to and showing how proud we are of our farmers. They are producing more and doing it with fewer emissions than farmers in any other country. That is what we should be talking about on the world stage to make sure that more countries are following Canada's leadership when it comes to agriculture and agriculture emissions.
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- Feb/6/24 7:34:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will say this about what is going on, and members will not see this on mainstream TV. In Europe right now, farmers are in an uprising because of the terrible policies governments have foisted upon them. Whatever is going on in Europe and the European Union, they should keep it there because their farmers are protesting and taking to the streets.
We should make sure that our farmers are happy, that we put policies in place that respect farmers, that we listen to what farmers are doing on the ground, and that we make sure they get it right so we do not copy anything that is going on right now in Europe when it comes to farm policies.
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- Feb/6/24 7:21:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to join in the debate today around the price of food inflation; the report that came from the agriculture committee, which I am proud to sit on; and some of the ideas we have heard over the last little while about how increases in the cost of food have affected Canadians in their day-to-day lives.
My friend from Battle River—Crowfoot just had a great point that he asked my colleague from Kenora about, and I asked this of Tyler McCann in committee today. I asked whether the point of a carbon tax, which the Liberals and NDP opine is the great resource they are going to use to lower emissions, was to change consumers' behaviour. Mr. McCann said yes, it is. We can go on Environment and Climate Change Canada's website, and see that the point of a carbon tax is to change people's behaviour based on an increasing price of a product.
It just so happens to be a product we are talking about today, which is food. I said in committee that it is amazing that a government is now fighting its own policy. Liberals and New Democrats are scrambling over each other to say that the carbon tax has not worked, because it did not increase the price of food. It was really one of the first times in my life in public service that I have seen a government arguing that a policy did not work when it did.
I see this in other areas of people's lives too. We see it in transportation, where mothers are having a harder time filling up a tank of gas to take their kids to hockey games, to ballet classes or to music lessons. In rural Canada, we have to drive. There is not public transportation service like there is in downtown Toronto, so people are making a choice about how many extra shifts they have to pick up to cover the next tank of gas. We see it with seniors, who are still in their homes, asking how many sweaters they are going to have to put on because they cannot afford to keep the heat up.
We see it time and time again. The Liberal-NDP carbon tax is making people change their behaviours in Canada, because it has made everything so much more expensive across our country.
We know it is working, because there was a little caucus revolt in the Liberal Party recently; Atlantic Canadian members, along with the Conservatives, who have called for a long time to axe the tax as part of our plan, said they had to exempt home heating. The proof is in the pudding. Why would the Liberal members in the Maritimes fight tooth and nail? It is because they are having political issues to get a carve-out from the carbon tax, since home heating is costing too much. It is almost like it is working, but the people within the Liberal Party and the NDP did not realize how much pain they were going to inflict on Canadians.
There is no other solution to heat a 100,000-square-foot barn. Today, in Ottawa, I met with a dairy farmer from just outside Regina. He said his heating bill for the barn has increased and increased. I have a SaskEnergy bill from another farmer, a chicken farmer. For one month, their gas supply cost is $1,092. Their carbon tax, with the GST on top of it, is $1,071. They are almost paying more in taxes on a monthly bill, $20 less, than they are for the gas they are supplying to heat their building. Maybe I am giving them the benefit of the doubt, but I do not think the Liberals and the New Democrats realized how much this was going to hurt.
From APAS, in Saskatchewan, Mr. Boxall was at our committee when we were talking about food prices. He said that, on the average farm in Saskatchewan, the carbon tax cost will be between $14,000 and $25,000. However, when it goes to $170 a tonne by 2030, Canada's Food Price Report for 2023 stated that a farm could pay $150,000 in carbon tax per year.
We asked Mr. Boxall in committee how that was going to affect farms. He said that:
It will have a huge impact—$150,000 on a 5,000-acre farm. It's unfathomable that we will get there on a carbon tax alone. It makes my skin crawl to think that's where we'll be, and then to be turned around and not recognized for the work that is done, ensuring that we have proper grasslands and that we have proper management of our farm soil. Farmers are the biggest stewards of the land in this country, and we care more about the environment than we ever get credit for. It really is going to be detrimental to Saskatchewan farmers.
That says it all. This Liberal government continues to punish our farmers, the people who put food on our plate, without a second thought of what the effect is going to be.
We talked to some witnesses today in the agriculture committee and one witness laid out three things that this government has done and wants to do that will affect food prices. Number one, he said, was the carbon tax. Number two was P2 packaging where the government wants to make sure that, in Canada, we cannot use plastics to ship fruit and vegetables, which the U.S.A. has already said it is not going to do, and so it is going to cut the supply of fruit and vegetables in our country. Number three is the fertilizer reduction targets. Those three things are what this witness said is going to inflate the cost of food exponentially year after year. This is from people who are on the ground from the fruit and vegetable growers in Ontario.
So, are we not going to believe a carbon tax bill that we saw from Saskatchewan where they were paying almost as much in taxes as in gas supply? Are we not going to believe members from the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, APAS, who are on the ground tilling the soil and planting the seeds who have said that $150,000 for a 5,000-acre farm will destroy farms in Saskatchewan, because it will make them unsustainable, which will lower supplies again? Are we not going to believe a dairy farmer who says that it is going to cost more and more each year to heat their barn with this carbon tax?
The PBO said that, by 2030, farmers will be paying $1 billion a year in carbon tax. My friend for Huron—Bruce, who has put this through on a private member's bill, talked about the GST and HST that we pay on the carbon tax, which is about $490 million a year. So, combined, the carbon tax and then the tax on the tax is going to be $1.5 billion automatically out of farmers' pockets, and people do not think that is going to have an effect on food prices. That is irrational. It is taking $1.5 billion out of farmers' pockets.
How are we going to make that up? Two things will happen: one, consumers will see that on the till at the grocery store, and prices will increase because farmers have to make that up; or two, farmers go out of business, and no farms, no food. If we lower the food supply in Canada, that will also increase the food cost. Members can see, and I agree with my friend from Winnipeg, that either way, consumers in rural or urban Saskatchewan are going to have to pay more for food.
At this point in time I would like to move an amendment, which will be seconded by the member for Battle River—Crowfoot. I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: “the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, presented on Tuesday, June 13, 2023, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food with instruction that it amend the same so as to: (a) take into consideration that Bill C-234, An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, has been amended by the Senate in a way that will prevent farmers from getting a carbon tax carve-out for grain drying, barn heating and other farm operations, and that since the Parliamentary Budget Officer has made clear that this bill, in its original form, would save Canadian farmers $1 billion by 2030, reducing the cost of food for Canadian families currently struggling to afford groceries; and (b) recommend that the House adopt the motion rejecting the Senate amendments as soon as possible.
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- Feb/6/24 7:05:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to commend that member for his audition for cabinet because there was not an answer in that comment. He is prepping himself for question period already. I wish him luck with that. He has two years left to make that move.
As a member of the agriculture committee, can he name one farmer he talked to, who has boots on the ground, planting, harvesting, dairy farming or poultry farming, who has come to him and said that carbon tax has helped their operation, that they are doing better, that it is a good thing that the Liberals implemented a carbon tax and that they cannot wait for it to go to $170 a tonne by 2030 to take $1 billion out of their pockets?
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- Feb/6/24 7:02:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will give my colleague a bit of time as he is quite new here. Just because he repeats something louder does not make something true. Catherine McKenna learned that lesson the hard way.
I would say that more than eight out of 10 Canadians suffer under the carbon tax and get less back. What is not being taken into account is the gas, the groceries and the home heating. There are so many times that the carbon tax hits Canadians again and again. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has already said that that is not true; six out of 10 Canadians are worse off from the carbon tax.
I want to get back to what we had a conversation about when it came to the agriculture committee. I saw the smile on the member's face, but what he could not say was how many farmers, not farm associations, but people who actively farm, he has met with have told him that the carbon tax has helped their farm and that they are better off with the carbon tax in place under the Liberal-NDP policy.
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- Feb/6/24 6:56:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as always, one has to be very careful with the Liberals when they talk about truths and untruths. What Dr. Charlebois said was that there has not been enough data collected to see exactly what the effect of the carbon tax is on food prices. He also said that he called for a pause on the carbon tax to lower food prices. Charlebois has said that; conveniently, the member omitted this.
When one hears a story coming from the Liberals, it is always interesting to listen to the facts.
Talking to Mr. McCann, I also asked if the point of a carbon tax is to increase the price so that consumers change their behaviour. He said that this is exactly what the Liberals say the point of a carbon tax is.
The truth is that, when it comes to food inflation, food prices and the relationship with the carbon tax, it will come out in the wash that there is a correlation. When one talks to farmers and dairy farmers today, their highest input cost now is the carbon tax and the heating of their barns. If someone does not think that affects the price of what a farmer does, then they should maybe get out of downtown Winnipeg and go to a farm once their life.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments from my colleague, with whom I sit on the agriculture committee. Obviously, in this report, there was an examination of some of the input costs that have caused food prices to rise.
My question for my hon. colleague is this. On our opposition day motion to report Bill C-234 back to the Senate unamended, will he be voting with us as Conservatives to make sure that farmers get help in decreasing the inputs when it comes to Bill C-234?
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- Oct/18/23 2:13:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight long, miserable years, Canadians are sick and tired of the NDP-Liberal government. The Liberal ministers were happy for a photo op with grocery CEOs, and then they promised that prices would go down before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving has come and gone, and the prices continue to climb. This is yet another broken promise by the Liberals. Canadians just cannot trust anything they say. First, the industry minister met with the grocery CEOs and said that he has a plan to lower food prices. Then he said that prices are stabilizing and that Canadians should look for this in their local grocery flyers. Now he seems to have no idea what is going on.
What the Prime Minister needs to realize is that, just like budgets, grocery bills will not balance themselves. All Canadians know that the Prime Minister simply is not worth the cost.
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Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today to speak to Bill C-252. I will not be supporting it, for various reasons, and I am going to walk through those reasons now. A lot of people in this place are parents, and I am a parent of three young children. Jameson is six. Clare is turning eight in July, and my son Nickson is 10, and we do talk a lot about nutrition in our family. I think a very important role of a parent is to begin healthy eating habits early in life.
With respect to kids being marketed to and Health Canada wanting to pull back some marketing, it seems like Health Canada always wants to bring in more and more bans. I remember that last year we were fighting Health Canada when it was trying to make amendments to front-of-package labelling to label whole beef and whole pork as unhealthy. It did that labelling for before the whole beef or whole pork was actually cooked. Once it is cooked, it loses a lot of its trans fats; the oil drips off, and then we actually have a healthier meal. That is another example of the banning that the government, seemingly continuously, wants to do, taking more and more control over the lives of Canadians. They are just expected to listen to exactly what the government says, and I think that is a dangerous road to go down.
One thing the government was doing was talking about marketing. It struck me as funny that, as I was driving down a road in Ottawa, I saw a candy store frontage, but it was not actually a candy store; it was a cannabis store. When we talk about taking on some marketing and some advertising, maybe we should start with not allowing certain companies to actually make cannabis look like candy. It would be a really good start in this country to actually tackle some of that marketing.
When we were looking at other aspects of Bill C-252, my colleague from Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies came over and talked about why we were trying to fight against the bill in its previous iteration with Senator Greene Raine. The unintended consequence of the bill is that it would take away opportunities for sponsorship in youth sports. Timbits hockey actually sponsors 300,000 kids to play sports in Canada. When we want to have these opportunities for kids who cannot play, because sometimes sports are becoming expensive, we need sponsorship like this. Why would we take a bill that would bring forward government regulations to, and I disagree with my colleague opposite, tell parents what to feed their kids, what is healthy and what is not?
Do members know how much access we are able to have to information on ingredients in the grocery store? My wife takes our kids grocery shopping all the time, and she actually shows them the ingredients that are in the stuff they want her to buy. They look at the first ingredient, and it is sugar. She says, “Why would we buy this? It is full of sugar and it is not going to make us healthy or give us energy.” That is what parents should do; they should create healthy eating habits. The member who spoke previously, the sponsor of the bill, did say that we have to have a multi-faceted approach to kids when it comes to treating obesity and bringing obesity rates down. That approach does involve physical activity.
We have been talking about all the marketing kids are seeing, but my kids do not see a lot of marketing. They are on an iPad or a cell phone one hour a week; on Saturdays they get to play a game. The rest of the time, we go outside and play. We are very active. This weekend I was at home, and I watched six flag football games because our kids were outside. When they were not playing flag football in the league, they were practising with other kids in the park. That fights obesity. Something we should be more focused on is getting our kids outside and playing, and that is something my wife and I have, as parents, taken to heart.
Also, parents should show a healthy lifestyle to their kids. We should be role models for our kids. We do not need the government to tell us how to feed our kids and what they should and should not be doing. Parents need to be better role models across this country for their children, and I think that is something we really need to focus on. I see it time and time again when intermingling with some other parents, where the first thing their kid does is to grab their iPhone from their pocket and sit with it for an hour. We need to be more involved. That is not government's job; that is our job as parents, and it is our job as to what we should be teaching our children. This is why, when legislation like this is brought forward, I am actually quite disappointed.
This legislation is not new; it has been done in Quebec. For 40 years, this legislation has been in place in Quebec. I asked the member very directly how much the obesity rates have gone down in Quebec with this legislation. Members probably noticed that she would not give a number. She would not answer, because government legislation does not have that much of an affect on what kids are going to eat; parents do, and that is what we should be focusing on.
The member talked about $10 million in the 2023 budget for keeping kids active. When that is spread across the country, it is not a lot of money to keep Canadian youth active. However, legislation such as this has actually been done in Canada and proven not to be as helpful as some members like to say. This seems to me to be the definition of insanity: doing the same things over and over again and expecting different outcomes. I see that a lot with the government.
The government talks about marketing to children and trying to make sure that children are not affected by it, because they might respond negatively. However, we also have to teach our kids that they are going to see things in their lives, but they have to learn and be able to look at it, say that it is not for them and move on. We should actually teach our children to see marketing, look at the package on the label when grocery shopping and make the decision not to eat it and put it in their body. The government does not have to do that for parents and kids.
There are a lot of roles where I know there is not a big difference between the Liberals and the NDP members, who think that government can do nothing wrong. Over here, we think government should be less and less involved in the everyday lives of Canadians; this legislation is a perfect example of that. I do not want the government to look after me or my children from cradle to grave. I want us to be able to make our own decisions.
Kids might make mistakes. We work hard, but we are not perfect. Our kids do get the odd stomach ache from eating too much candy or too many chips, but the kids actually learn a lesson from that as well. They realize that they cannot put all this artificial food in their system, because it actually makes them feel unwell; that is a learning experience.
However, to say that the government can control what kids are going to see and control marketing is an issue. In an earlier part of my speech, I brought forward a very valid point, which is that if we want to talk about marketing to children, we need to talk about the fact that people are trying to market cannabis to children and call it a “candy shop”. We should look at tackling some of those issues, which are actually dangerous to kids, and let the parents tackle issues of healthy dietary habits, healthy habits when it comes to staying active and making sure that we are more involved in our kids' lives, day in and day out.
The government is not going to solve those problems; the government of the day definitely will not solve many problems. However, as an engaged parent and a member of society who actually wants to help out and make sure that kids are making healthier choices, I think we have to have more education system involvement when kids have phys. ed. class. Kids can quite often opt out of phys. ed. class. We have to stay active, and we have to stay motivated to make sure that we are making healthy lifestyle choices; that can be a part of it.
My Liberal colleagues have said that we need a multi-faceted approach, but maybe they can take all the effort that has been put into the bill before us into keeping kids more active. In that way, when they get older and have to make choices by themselves, they are going to stay active. They will have a healthy lifestyle, and they will have a healthier diet. This is how we are trying to train our kids so that they can make their own choices. They can read what is on the label and decide that if the first ingredients are sugar and carbonated water, it is not going to be healthy for them. However, we need to train the next generation to actually make decisions on their own, because the government cannot make every decision for them.
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Mr. Speaker, I look forward to speaking to this bill after questions and comments, but I have one question for the member opposite. She has said that this has been in legislation in Quebec for the last 40 years. How much lower is the obesity rate in children in Quebec since the act was legislated in that province?
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Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to join the debate today to talk about Bill S-227, which was brought forward by my friend from Perth—Wellington. I thank him very much for bringing this forward.
As many people know, I grew up on a dairy and beef farm in southwest Saskatchewan, so agriculture had a huge impact on my life when I was growing up. I will take a few minutes today to talk about how important agriculture is, was and will continue to be in our country.
First and foremost, we have the best agricultural producers in the world. What we do here in Canada when it comes to agriculture is so fundamentally well done by the people who are in the fields, raise cattle and produce milk. I am very happy to have lots of friends in the agriculture sector still, and to be a member of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, which unanimously passed this bill back to the House for third reading. I was so happy we passed it quickly so the legislation can pass and be made law, and so we can celebrate food day on August 5 of this year, as my colleague from Winnipeg North said.
One thing we are doing in Saskatchewan, which is one thing this bill would help with, is improving the education on how our food is produced. In Saskatchewan, we do something called “agriculture in the classroom”, which is about having students learn about where their food comes from and that it does not just appear in the grocery store or on their plate when mom or dad cooks it at home. It teaches them where it starts, which is the fields, the farms and the cattle ranches in our country.
Agriculture in the classroom is not just about the students. It gives educators the opportunity to gain real-life experience on the farm. One of the educators who took part in this in 2022 said:
This was the most transformational excursion I have had the pleasure to go on. I loved learning about how farmers are taking active measures to ensure that our food is produced in the most environmentally friendly way.... I really appreciated the connections I made with several of the participants and look forward to using some of the resources in my classroom now that I have a great awareness of what is available for my grade.
This is a quote from Sherry Lesser, a 2022 agriculture expedition teacher.
This bill would bring together rural and urban citizens and allow them to start the conversation about how we produce food in this country.
As I said, I have been on the agriculture committee for several years, and one thing we really need to make other Canadian citizens aware of is just how much has been done to improve sustainable agriculture, though I think all agriculture is sustainable. Our farmers should get credit for what has been done in the last 20 to 25 years. They should get credit for zero tillage, which has now practically been incorporated. They should get credit for crop rotation, where different crops take out different nutrients from the soil.
People have come to present to committee, and the agricultural soil in Canada is in the best shape it has ever been in. This is because we leave more in the ground and have the ability, through technology, to make our soil as healthy as it has ever been.
I had the experience of attending Ag in Motion, one of the biggest agricultural shows in North America. It takes place just outside Saskatoon. Yara, which is a fertilizer company, had a research plot there, and I was able to go on a tour with the company, which field-mapped the plot. Technology has done great things for agriculture. Yara had a little machine that scanned 30 leaves in this plot and then gave a reading, down to the decimal point, of how much fertilizer needed to be added to that part of the field.
Technology has come such a long way. We can now have a field map, with GPS, and the tractors now have GPS as well, so farmers can be so precise on how much fertilizer they put in the fields. It is amazing how much more sustainable our practices are. If one talks to any producer, one will hear that they want to lower their inputs as much as possible, because fertilizer and fuel cost a lot of money and that hits the bottom line. I am so proud of our producers and how well they have done in using that technology to make farming even more sustainable.
Of the total emissions for Canada, agriculture represents 8% to 10%. In any other jurisdiction in the world, the agriculture sector accounts for 25% of emissions, or more. That is how well we are doing in Canada: Our emissions are three times lower than in any other jurisdiction in the world that has agriculture as major part of its economy. That is what we have to keep in mind when we are talking about sustainability and agriculture. We have to let people in this country know how well our producers are doing when it comes to agriculture and sustainability. It is something we should be proud of, and the government should be there to promote what our producers have done.
We are definitely going to be at the forefront of being sustainable and feeding the world. As our population grows, our outputs and yields have to continue to grow. As we have lowered our emissions, the hard-working men and women in agriculture have also increased their yields. It is fantastic to see how much more we are producing with less, and that is something for which we should give credit to our producers. They made a lot of these innovative changes without any government intervention.
Getting back to Bill S-227, we can talk about education in the classroom, which is vitally important. I always talk about my rural, agricultural background, but I am an urban MP. I represent the west side of the city of Regina, so I am an urban MP. I always say I kind of blend the rural and the urban together. That is something this country should do more of. I think that people in downtown Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, our bigger cities, need to have conversations with rural people and talk about where our food comes from and how sustainably it is produced. That is something that will bring this country together more. At such a time in our country's history, we need more things that bring us together instead of dividing us.
Many people are one generation removed from the farm and still have that connection to rural areas, whether in Ontario or Quebec. I think there is a particular pride in being from a rural part of this country. When I am door knocking in Regina—Lewvan, many of my constituents either still have a farm in their family or are one generation removed. They talk about producing and what they are growing, with pride showing on their faces. I can see the smiles and memories that come back from when they were living on the farm, especially during harvest and seeding, when people really have that experience of coming together as a family.
We are going to see a lot of hope and optimism in May. Lots of people are hitting up fields right now in southern Saskatchewan. I wish everyone who is planting this year the best of luck. I hope it rains at the right times and that we have an amazing crop this year, because that is what we look for. There is a lot of hope and optimism in May in Saskatchewan, with people going out into the fields, but there is a lot of pressure too. It is big money, millions of dollars, that people are putting on the line to grow, fuel and fertilize so they can feed the world. With that hope and optimism also come a few worries.
Another thing I would like to do with respect to food day is to acknowledge that where our food comes from is a great way of life. Growing food and growing what we actually eat ourselves comes with a pride that cannot be explained. We raise our calves and send them into town. When we get that meat and eat it, we talk with our kids about how that meat went from being a calf to being part of our diet. There is something that comes with that, and it is a point of a pride when talking to kids.
Class field trips are something I remember. I remember going to a Hutterite colony when I was in grade 6 or grade 7. I learned about how everything is produced in that one setting. It starts in the field, where they have a bunch of plants. They also package and sell some of their own meat. We have not done that for a while, but my wife is on the student council at our school, and we are starting to do more trips to Hutterite colonies to have kids learn things first-hand and be on the farm. They can see how that production happens. It is interesting, because now, when my kids go to the grocery store, they look at the packaging of the meat a bit differently. They see where the meat was produced and packaged.
Food from field to fork and plate is something we can all learn a lot about. We should take great pride in our agriculture producers and how well and sustainably they produce the food that fuels this country. Canada will always have the food, fuel and fertilizer the world needs. We have to support our farmers. I am very happy to support my friend with this private member's bill.
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- Feb/14/23 1:33:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join in the debate this afternoon.
I have been sitting here for most of the morning listening to some of my colleagues' speeches. I am proud to see that the member for Timmins—James Bay still has Harper derangement syndrome, proud that he is still full-fledged with that last question.
The House leader for the NDP has full-on Harper derangement syndrome as well. He still blames the former prime minister for almost everything that has gone wrong in his life, probably that he did not get the Christmas present he wanted as well. Mr. Harper probably does not think about them whatsoever anymore, so I am glad he is still making breakfast in their kitchen.
I want to talk about a few things around competitiveness and how people are doing in Canada right now. The motion is quite long, and a few people did not get to the motion. The member for Kings—Hants talked about competitiveness more so than inflation. A few of the members started on the issue of inflation and how it was affecting Canadians. I want to really dive into that and how it has affected people in Regina—Lewvan and my community.
One thing I want to put on the record are a few comments that the Prime Minister a couple of years ago. I remember when the budget was delivered. Speaking through the national media to Canadians, he said that the government decided to take on the debt so Canadians would not have to. I will never forget that moment. As soon as those words came out of his mouth, I thought, if the government takes on debt, who eventually pays that back? It shows that he does not think about monetary policy. No government in the world has ever actually created wealth. They do not create revenue. The way the government gives revenue is that it takes it from people who work and pay taxes. It takes it from businesses that make revenue. The government does not create its own stream of revenue.
That was probably one of the most out of touch comments I have ever heard a leader of our country make. As my colleague, who just wrapped up, said, eventually the bill does come due, and it is the Canadian taxpayer who has to pay that bill.
We are seeing that in the very real result of inflation. I know that Tiff Macklem and random Liberals like Mark Carney and Bill Morneau are all talking about how inflation is more and more a made-in-Canada issue. That inflation has hit everyone hard. It has hit the parents trying to take their kids to sports and buy healthy groceries.
People take pictures of their groceries and send them to me to show me what $200 of groceries looks like, and it is four bags of groceries. It is a real issue for people right now trying to make good choices to feed their families.
As we have talked about in question period, parents are skipping meals so their kids do not have to; 1.5 million Canadians line up each month at food banks. We are the bread basket of the world, and 1.5 million Canadians are using food banks.
Members of the government and the coalition should listen to that. That is a real number. People are making these decisions to go to a food bank. They cannot afford groceries because of inflation.
One of the huge things that has driven up the cost of groceries is the carbon tax. When we have brought in opposition motions about scrapping the carbon tax, immediately everyone says that we do not have a environment plan. We will hear that from the NDP and the Liberals, that there is no environmental plan on this side and why would we want to scrap the carbon tax.
As we say all the time, a carbon tax is not an environmental plan; it is a tax plan. We can see it in the results. We asked our Liberal colleagues and the NDP, which always supports the Liberal carbon tax, about the results. What targets have they hit? Could they show us an emissions target they have hit in the last eight years to sell the carbon tax to Canadians. They are trying to sell it as this green plan but emissions have continued to go up.
At the last COP meeting, where everyone flew their private jets in and had a fancy gathering, we heard that Canada was 58 in the world in reducing its emissions. That is over the Liberal government's whole history. Being 58 in the world is not something to be proud of. Therefore, when the Liberals are trying to sell this carbon tax as a tax plan, it is not true. If they are trying to sell the carbon tax as an environmental plan, it is not working. Maybe they have to go back to the drawing board for something that actually would lower emissions across our country.
With regard to competitiveness, as my friend from Kings—Hants mentioned, I met with the Canadian Steel Producers Association. We had an all-party steel caucus. One of the things that it brought up was competitiveness.
I will take this time right now for a shout-out to say that my heart is with the 100 or so USW 5890 workers in Regina, who are on the verge of being laid off. One of the reasons they are having more layoffs at Evraz steel in Regina is because we cannot sell our product, because our country is being flooded with cheap steel from countries like South Korea, China and India. Their steel is costing pennies on the dollar of what our steel is costing. Because of the carbon tax, it is costs so much more now to make that steel.
We want to talk about being more competitive, and my friend is shaking his head and agreeing. He was on the Zoom meeting as well from Flamborough—Glanbrook, and I really appreciated his contribution.
One thing we can all agree on is that when it comes to made-in-Canada steel, it is way more environmentally friendly than any other steel that people are using in infrastructure projects in our country. We have the most environmentally friendly steel. We have a steel industry where our workers are treated well and they are paid a fair wage for a fair day's work. In a lot of other countries that does not happen. The fact is this. If we not only used more Canadian steel in our infrastructure and in our projects but exported it to other areas of the world, it would lower emissions in our country. That is just in one sector of our economy.
That is where we want to talk about competitiveness and what inflation does, not only to our whole economy and people's day-to-day lives but for the growth of our economy.
The Conservatives agree. We are always talking about growing that pie, not cutting it up into smaller chunks for each individual province or sector. We have an opportunity in our country now, coming out of COVID, to grow our economy, to get stronger and we do not see that happening with the current government.
I just heard the member for Winnipeg North say that they were going to build back better. Many Canadians would look him in the eye and tell him not to worry about building back better; just put it back the way it was. We hear this all the time, that we should quit trying to make things better because all the Liberals are doing is making Canadians fall further and further behind.
I was an MLA for eight years before I became a member of Parliament. One of the things I heard a colleague say was that sometimes one of the best things government could do was to get out of the way. Sometimes the best thing it can do is nothing and let the entrepreneurs of our country do it. Canadians are very good at knowing what to do with their own money. I say in many of my speeches that a dollar in the pocket of the person who made it is worth twice as much as having the government take it and spend it.
The Liberals were talking about their job numbers. Since February 2020, 80% of all the jobs made under the government were in the public sector. It seems like the Liberals have forgotten about the private sector and entrepreneurs, those people who invest their money and create jobs, where the government does not have to do it for them every day.
I am proud to represent Regina—Lewvan and to put some of the people's stories on the record today. Inflation is hitting everyone hard across our province and in our city. Under a government led by our new leader, we would take the tax off and keep the heat on.
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- Dec/8/22 5:17:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the NDP continually tries to have this class warfare, whereby it pits companies against employees, westerners against easterners and urban against rural. It continually tries to divide Canadians. It learned that from its Liberal counterparts.
Everyone should be working together in Canada to make our economy work better. I have never seen a company without employees, and I have never seen employees without a company. They should work hand in hand. We should stop trying to pit them against each other, because that is a recipe for failure. That is what the NDP did in Saskatchewan, and that is why it is relegated to having 10 seats in that province, because it did not understand the economy or that we need to work together to grow our economy.
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- Dec/8/22 5:16:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, we have to launch many infrastructure projects. One of the big Liberal failures is that the Infrastructure Bank has hardly done any projects at all.
We also have to make our economy more resilient through innovation through the private sector, and we have been doing that. Agriculture is a perfect example. All the innovations done through technology and better seeding practices have all been done through the private sector. Whether it is precision ag, zero tillage, crop rotation or crop cover, it was all done by private entrepreneurial agriculture producers.
There was not one government program that said, “Thou shalt do zero tillage.” It was done through private innovation, technology and the sharing of best practices. That is how we get ahead and create a more resilient economy, not by continuous government intervention.
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- Dec/8/22 5:14:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if I had had more time for my speech, I would have gone down that path.
The carbon tax hits at different points in the supply chain, so taking the carbon tax off food would also help lower the price of transportation and agriculture inputs, thus lowering the price of food across the country. It is not just at the grocery store that the carbon tax gets added onto the price of groceries; it is throughout the supply chain. That is why this motion would almost immediately help lower the price of groceries across the country, in the provinces that have the federal backstop and the ones that have their own.
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- Dec/8/22 5:04:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would just like to take a few moments to rebut some of the things my colleague from Kings—Hants said.
In terms of my question, which was pretty direct, from 2019 to 2021 Canada had the second-highest increase in its gross debt-to-GDP ratio out of 33 countries covered by the IMF, behind only Japan. Our gross debt-to-GDP ratio increased from 87.2% to 112.1% in 2021, an increase of 24.9 percentage points. Given that the Canadian government has accumulated more debt as a share of our economy than nearly every other country in our peer group, the expectation would be that Canada's economy fared better than others during this period. This is incorrect.
Despite leading our peers in debt accumulation, Canada did not outperform our peer group in economic growth during the pandemic. Canada had the 11th-lowest real GDP growth, 5.2%, in 2020 and the 12th-lowest real GDP growth, 4.6%, in 2021. Canada also did not outperform its peer group by achieving lower unemployment during the pandemic. Canada had the third-highest unemployment rate, 9.58%, out of 33 industrialized countries and the eighth-highest unemployment rate, 7.43%, in 2021.
I get that these numbers are a lot of numbers that just came out at everyone, but I put these numbers on the record to debunk the myth that the Liberals keep on trying to portray, that they somehow went into the pandemic later than everyone else and came out sooner. That is simply not the fact.
They spent more than every other country in the world but Japan, and our citizens are not better off. The proof is in the pudding, as 1.5 million Canadians in one month used a food bank to put food on the table for their families. That is a failure of leadership by the Liberals.
Students at universities across our country are staying in hostels or needing to use a food bank to eat or, like in my alma mater, the University of Regina, actually fundraising so students do not go to bed hungry, asking alumni for money to help feed students.
Another thing I am looking forward to is splitting my time with the member for Brandon—Souris and hearing what he has to say about a private member's bill he brought forward last Parliament, which still has not been implemented.
On the topic of not doing what Canadians need, I would like to talk a bit now about agriculture and the agriculture file.
My colleague from Kings—Hants left a bit of wiggle room on Bill C-234. I know he had some positive things to say about it, and I am very interested, because all the Liberal members voted against the bill in committee. As the chair, he did not have to vote, and I am really excited to see how he votes and if he is going to stand with the agriculture producers in Kings—Hants or with his party whip, whether he will be voting along the party line or voting for the people who sent him here.
I am very much looking forward to that vote, because I think that over the last couple of weeks a few members on the Liberal backbenches are starting to feel a bit of pressure when it comes to either supporting the carbon tax or supporting the amendments at the report stage of Bill C-21. I am looking forward to seeing if some of the rural members from the Maritimes or Newfoundland or some of the members from Alberta and Manitoba are going to support these gun amendments that criminalize law-abiding firearms owners, or if they are going to support their constituents and make sure their voices are heard in the chamber. There are a few votes on which I am really looking forward to seeing what some of the Liberal members in the back rows are going to do.
This motion is about making life easier and more affordable for Canadians. We hear in our offices across the country that one of the biggest strains now on families is going to the grocery store and trying to make sure they have enough food to put on the table.
Some of these increases are staggering. I get pictures sent into my office of what $100 buys now at a grocery store. It does not go a long way for a lot of these families. Some of the reasons are that fish is up 10.4% to purchase; butter is 16.9%; eggs, 10.9%; margarine, 37.5%; bread, rolls, buns, 17.6%; dry or fresh pasta, 32.4%; fresh fruit, 13.2%; oranges, 18.5%; and the list goes on: lettuce, 12.4%; potatoes, 10.9%.
These are a lot of staple foods for families. Our household is no different from anyone else's. We have three growing children. They are five, seven and nine, and they are starting to eat more and more. Like a lot of other families, we are seeing our grocery bills continue to climb, and these are the things that we need to have solutions for.
As members of the House of Commons or as public servants, we have to look for how we can ease this inflationary pain. One of the things we can do is get together and take some taxes off the prices of these fruits and vegetables and everyday essentials.
We also had a motion brought forward a couple of weeks ago to take the carbon tax off home heating, which is quite reasonable. Some of the members across the way voted in favour of that motion, and I thank them, including the member for Avalon, for voting in favour. I appreciate that very much, because he was listening to his constituents. It is incumbent on us to remember who brought us here. Former premier Wall always said that these are not our seats, that these are the seats of the constituents and we are just caretakers for a while, because someone else will come and take them. I think a few members are remembering that, and we appreciate that support very much.
When it comes down to erasing the carbon tax on the price of groceries, it is pretty much unanimous in the House of Commons that the price of groceries is too high. We are just trying to figure out how to deal with that situation. Also, the price of groceries is high because that carbon tax hits our producers; it hits the farmers and it hits the trucking industry. At each link of a supply chain, the carbon tax continues to increase the price of goods. That is something we are trying to get through to the members across the aisle and get through to our Liberal, NDP and Bloc colleagues. It is not just a one-time hit; it continually makes things more expensive.
We saw from a recent report that a 5,000-acre farm, by 2030, will pay $150,000 in carbon taxes per year. I grew up on a small family farm in southwest Saskatchewan. We had dairy and beef, and we made our own hay. We had 2,000 acres that we combined. They are not big farms. I do not know anyone who farms 5,000 acres who can take a $150,000 hit year after year. Unless common sense prevails, the only outcome for these family farms is bankruptcy.
The Minister of Agriculture was at the agriculture committee, and I am proud to be a member of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. The minister was there for ministerial estimates, and I asked her to give me a definition of what a family farm is. She could not. Some Liberal members have not been on a farm and do not know agriculture. They see it as big corporate agriculture and big business, but 95% of the farms in Canada are still family farms.
The minister was taking the family out of the family farm and said that families are still okay, but it is the farm that is getting taxed. That is not a thing. The family farm is one unit. It is a package deal. Those two cannot be separated. Some are incorporated and some are not. One thing we learned through CERB was that sometimes a family farm that is not incorporated missed out on some programming.
I will leave members with this, when it comes to the rising cost of inflation. Tiff Macklem, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, said himself that the increase in spending by the government has had an effect on inflation.
One more thing that is really going to hit us hard, now that the interest rate is 4.25%, is that people are going to start losing their homes. I have friends whose mortgages have gone up $750 to $800 per month. That is over a $10,000 increase in what they will have to pay for their mortgages over a year. Families, farm families and everyone in between are squeezed hard enough. They cannot absorb that $10,000 hit. They cannot absorb that $1,000 hit on their grocery bill. We in the House of Commons are going to have to come to the realization that one cannot get blood from a stone. We have to give tax breaks to Canadians.
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- Dec/8/22 4:58:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments. I want to talk a bit about how we rank among our peers around the world in how our economy has performed.
In 2019 to 2021, Canada had the second-highest increase in gross debt-to-GDP ratio out of 33 countries, only behind Japan. One would have thought our economy would have improved, but despite leading our peers in debt accumulation, Canada did not outperform our peer group in economic growth during the pandemic. Canada had the 11th lowest real GDP growth.
The fact is we spent almost more money than any other country, but our GDP growth did not keep pace. Would my hon. colleague say that is a record the Liberals should be proud of?
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- Dec/8/22 4:43:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the article states, “She dismissed claims by the [Leader of the Official Opposition] that the government would stretch its promised $50 per tonne price cap by 2022, if re-elected this fall.
I would like this member to tell his constituents why the Liberals broke their promise on raising the carbon tax past their committed $50 a tonne.
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