Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak against the twelfth report of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry with regards to Bill C-234, An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act.

Honourable senators, farming has a special place in my heart. I mentioned in a previous debate that I met Dr. Robert Glenn in 1972, when I worked with him as a dental assistant. He took me under his wing and became a surrogate father to me.

While working as a dentist, he was also a farmer and would talk to me about farming. I asked him why he continued to farm when so much could be against him, such as the weather, the costs and the time. I soon understood, despite the time and work ethic required and the possibility that he might not have made any money by the end of the season, the love he had for farming. He said, “My girl, it’s in your blood.”

So when I see farmers, I see that.

If we divide the earth into four quarters, three quarters would represent water — the oceans, lakes and rivers. The remaining quarter would represent the land. Half of that land, one eighth of the earth, is too hostile to support us. That leaves one eighth of the earth for us to live on. I urge you to remember that as we’re having this debate.

In October 2023, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs stated:

Energy-efficient barns traditionally were barns that were well insulated. The primary cost factors in poultry farming were considered to be feed costs and chick costs, not energy costs. But now farmers are facing a situation where energy costs may double in the next few years.

“We really started to focus on energy costs about three years ago, particularly when we had threats of rolling blackouts in the summer months,” comments Bill Revington . . .

— who is general manager of farm operations for a large commercial poultry producer.

The 2022 Independent Auditor’s Report entitled Carbon Pricing — Environment and Climate Change Canada, under the subheading “Supporting burdened groups,” states that “Some groups remain disproportionately burdened by carbon pricing.” The report notes that these groups include “ . . . low-income households; Indigenous peoples; northern and remote communities; emission-intensive, trade-exposed industries; and small- and medium-sized enterprises.”

The federal government implemented measures to mitigate the burden of the federal backstop on the groups that would be disproportionately burdened by carbon pricing. However, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada found that small- and medium-sized enterprises were still disproportionately burdened.

One of the principles used to guide the pan-Canadian approach to pricing carbon pollution was that carbon-pricing policies should use some of the revenue from carbon pricing to avoid a disproportionate burden on certain groups. Environment and Climate Change Canada made efforts to identify groups that could be disproportionately burdened by carbon pricing and included small- and medium-sized enterprises. Without mitigating measures, these burdens could include an increase in the cost of living, potential employment losses and increases in operating costs for some trade-exposed industries. The Office of the Auditor General of Canada stated that the relative effects of carbon-pricing systems on burdened groups and Indigenous peoples will not be assessed until the next interim review of the benchmark in 2026. That’s a long time to leave our farmers in limbo.

To support certain organizations, $218 million of the fuel charge proceeds was allocated to Environment and Climate Change Canada to be delivered through the Climate Action Incentive Fund over two years. The fund was created to help organizations make energy-efficient improvements and retrofits to reduce energy use, costs and carbon pollution, with funding delivered through three separate funding streams. Eligible recipients include small- and medium-sized enterprises as well as municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals.

In the 2019-20 fiscal year, none of the funds allocated to the Climate Action Incentive Fund had been spent. In the 2020-21 fiscal year, 44%, which amounted to $95 million, of the allocated funds had been spent. The department told the Office of the Auditor General of Canada that modifications aimed to address these issues were not implemented because the Climate Action Incentive Fund was sunsetting. The department had not addressed the burden from carbon pricing faced by small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The recommendation made by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada was to address the disproportionate burden that carbon pricing may have on certain groups and Indigenous peoples. Environment and Climate Change Canada should work with provinces and territories to assess the burden of carbon-pricing systems on certain groups and report publicly on measures implemented in jurisdictions to mitigate the burden of carbon pricing on these groups.

Honourable senators, the cost of producing food and the land on which it is produced is increasingly at odds with the tighter and tighter concentration and distribution of economic power. Urban sprawl and land rezoned for residential subdivisions have the ability to reduce the farmland available to feed Canadians. Why would people allow the land that is the basis of a central food source to be flipped into housing, causing farmers to lose their businesses?

As Jeff Rubin explained in an autumn 2013 article in The Globe and Mail:

The price of farmland in Canada has outpaced both residential and commercial real estate, gaining an average of 12 per cent over the last five years. In some hotspots, such as southwestern Ontario, the price-per-acre has been going up by as much as 50 per cent a year. Even pension plans and hedge funds have become players in the pursuit of prime agricultural land, interest that is only sending prices that much higher.

The pressure to rezone is a reality for many farms.

The EU’s common agricultural policy, or CAP, launched in 1962 and it is a partnership between agriculture and society, and between Europe and its farmers. Its main aims are to improve agricultural productivity so that consumers have a stable supply of affordable food, and to ensure that EU farmers can make a reasonable living. Fifty years after CAP was implemented, the EU recognized the need to address the following challenges: food security — at the global level, food production will have to double in order to feed a world population of 9 billion people in 2050; climate change and sustainable management of natural resources; looking after the countryside across the EU and keeping the rural economy alive; providing training for land managers, farmers and farm advisers; providing specialist advice and assistance in preparing conservation plans; and paying farmers for the ecological goods and services they provide, such as clean water and habitats for wildlife.

Honourable senators, don’t you think we owe it to all types of food production in Canada to do the same? This is not only an issue of carbon pricing; it is also one of food security and sovereignty.

As I said, I am speaking against the report, and ask that you pass Bill C-234 as soon as possible. Thank you.