- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Regina—Lewvan
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $123,656.05
- Government Page
- Feb/6/24 7:21:11 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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- Nov/2/22 5:31:06 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the conversation, but the conversations we have had in our caucus are to the effect that the legislation would heavily regulate, but not ban, the plastics. I appreciate my hon. colleague's taking the time to ask such a thoughtful question, as I always appreciate her interjections.
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- Nov/2/22 5:17:19 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to join the debate this afternoon.
I thank my colleague from Edmonton West for his remarks. I do appreciate them.
The member for Vancouver Kingsway talked about a socialist plot. I think there are some socialist plots, but I do not think they involve the environment. They are more or less about wealth redistribution than anything else. The members are quite cagey on the NDP side, so I look forward to answering questions from them after this speech.
A member from Vancouver on the Liberal side asked what the Conservatives' plan is when it comes to the environment. I would put this to him.
Several private members' bills were put forward last session before an unnecessary election was called. One of them was to ban the dumping of raw sewage into the lakes, rivers and oceans, to make sure we could clean up the St. Lawrence River. That private member's bill was put forward by my hon. colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle and only God knows why, but the Liberals voted against it. They voted against the ban on dumping raw sewage into our pristine lakes, rivers and oceans in Canada.
When they talk about the environment and what would be the Conservatives' plan, one would think a very good start would be to ensure that we do not put pollutants into our water systems. That would be a rational conversation and something that any government should do. We have the capacity. We have the Liberals' failed Infrastructure Bank, which could have put money into making sure the municipalities had the money to upgrade their infrastructure so we would not be putting raw sewage into our water systems in this country. That would be a start. If the member asks the question again, I may have tripped on the answer to it already.
A bill that was brought forward by the member for York—Simcoe in the last Parliament, and which was part of the Conservative campaign plan, was to make sure that we stop dumping plastics in other countries and to make sure we look after our own waste. Once again, unknown to many in this chamber, the Liberals voted against that private member's bill brought forward by the Conservatives to make sure we have a cleaner and greener environment to be passed on to the next generation.
A couple of those private members' bills we put forward in the last session before the election of 2021 would have definitely been concrete measures to make sure the environment is cleaner. I would like to have that conversation and put on the record that there have been several measures we have looked at as a party to ensure our environment stays clean.
As my friend from Edmonton West said, we will be supporting the bill going to committee for amendments. Because the CEPA has not been amended since 1999, I think there are some things that need to be changed. We look forward to having that conversation at committee.
Another thing we have asked our Liberal counterparts is what their environmental plan is. The bill proposes to change CEPA, but what is their plan to ensure that emissions go down? They have a carbon tax, but that definitely is not an environmental plan. It is a tax scheme. Under the current government, emissions have continued to increase.
The Liberal government has brought forward policies recently, such as, the reduction in fertilizer use on farms across the country, which is not an environmental plan either. That is just a plan to hamstring our producers, ranchers and farmers even more when they are trying to feed the world. That is not a climate plan. We would ask our Liberal colleagues across the way that same question. When I talk to residents in Saskatchewan and around the country, they want to know what the benefit of the fertilizer reduction plan is. One of the biggest things I am asked is if it will result in less food in Canada.
On the flip side, if the Liberals want our farmers and producers to continue to produce the same amount of food with less fertilizer, they are going to have to use more arable land. This would result in more machinery being used and higher fuel consumption because more land has to be used to produce the same amount of food. A lot of the time when we hear about the environmental policies and actions of the Liberals, they have some unintended consequences, because they either have not done their homework or they do not understand what it takes to produce food.
When I see the environment being impacted in different ways when the Liberals bring forward these policies, that is what I like to bring to the table. Maybe they do not understand what it takes to actually produce the food that ends up in grocery stores across the country.
Another thing I would say about our environmental plan is the Conservatives also put forward a policy called the clean air act. For all of these things, we have taken steps to try to ensure we have a cleaner environment for the next generation. I have three young children, and I think everyone in this chamber wants to ensure they have the opportunity to enjoy a clean environment, just as we did growing up as children.
I grew up on a family farm, and we took the sustainability of our farm very seriously. If we did not have grassland, our cattle could not be fed. If we did not have the proper soil and nutrients in our hay lands to produce hay, we did not have feed to feed the dairy cows. I grew up on a dairy farm, so we had to make sure there were nutrients in the soil, that we conserved water and that we had runoff. Tree rows would collect the snow so there would be runoff.
Producers have been environmental stewards for generations, and it is not because of any government policy—
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