Ben Lobb

[Questions on the Order Paper, January 29th, 2024]

With regard to the High Frequency Rail project and the final report expected in late 2023 to inform government decisions on opportunities to enhance rail service in Southwestern Ontario: (a) is the final report complete, and, if so, what is the website address where the report can be found; and (b) if the final report is not yet complete, when will it be, and what is the reason it was not ready in late 2023?

[Questions on the Order Paper, January 29th, 2024]

With regard to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC): what were the expenditures incurred by NSERC related to the reception on November 1, 2023, titled "Celebrating Excellence: Honouring Canada's Top Natural Sciences and Engineering Researchers", in total, and broken down by item?

[Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, January 29th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, just simply, at the end of the day and at the bottom line, if this bill could do one thing, it would be to axe the tax for farmers so that there are lower prices at the grocery store. That is what at the end of the day we have to do. If all the elected members of Parliament want to help people in their ridings, I am telling them that this is one way they can get it done.

[Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, January 29th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, a colleague of ours submitted an Order Paper question on the cost to administer the carbon tax, which I believe is $82 million a year. That is outrageous in and of itself.

In regard to the environment, what I would say to my hon. colleague is this. Farmers are not the problem. I know he was not saying that farmers were the problem; I realize that. Farmers are doing their part. In life, we have to be able to do what we can and what is feasible. Farmers get up every day and do what they can to provide for their family; to pay their bills to the banks, co-ops and everything else; and to be good to the environment. That is the reality of being a farmer.

[Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, January 29th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I already presented the motion a couple of weeks ago. It takes out all the amendments that came from the Senate and puts it back in its original form.

I appreciate the member for Kings—Hants. We have a good working relationship. However, I would also point out that the Liberals appointed six other senators, just in the last couple of months, to get this bill passed. He knows one senator who was appointed really well. It is Rodger Cuzner, who spent 20 years as a Liberal member of Parliament in the House of Commons. I understand the member's points, but the Liberals also appointed quite a few Liberals to the Senate.

[Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, January 29th, 2024]

moved:

That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that this House disagrees with the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-234, An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise again and talk to Bill C-234.

Groundhog Day is just a few days away and it feels like Groundhog Day again on this bill, Bill C-234.

It was basically two years ago, almost to the day, that I presented this important bill to the agricultural community and the backstop provinces to help provide some relief in the form of carbon tax exemption for on-farm use when farmers were heating their livestock barns and drying their crops. It has really added up in the last two years, and it will continue to cost them.

Before I get into it, I want to highlight a couple of facts about the state of the country and where we are today. There are four key priorities on which this party, our leader and members of Parliament will focus, which is axing the tax for our agricultural community as well as for all Canadians. They are really suffering under high inflation, high bills and high costs, whether they are seniors at home, or families or whether people are on their own. Inflation is out of control. By axing the tax, it will give Canadians a chance.

The other thing is that we have a massive housing deficit. We need to build more homes. We need to encourage cities and municipalities to get out of the way and allow this to take place.

We also have to get control of our federal budget and federal finances. The debt and deficit are way out of control. The debt has doubled in eight years under the reckless spending of the Liberal government. We need to get this under control, not just for the sake of the overall finances and the well-being of our country, but for the trickle-down effects it has on Canadians in every corner of the country. High spending by government leads to inflation.

The last thing is that our city and country roads and streets need do be safe. I cannot believe how much has changed in eight years in regard to crime and the safety of our streets. We have to act now. Canadians are counting on us. It does not matter if people live in the downtown of a city, in a suburb of a city or down a country road where I live, everywhere is being impacted. It is the catch and release, catch and release and a person is out the door.

On Bill C-234, I would like to highlight one thing, maybe a bit of a brag. I was at a Grain Farmers of Ontario meeting for the Huron county chapter during the recess of Parliament. I have some nice numbers to report.

The average corn yield for corn in Huron county, and let us call it Huron—Bruce, is 200 bushels to an acre. Soybeans are over 55 bushels to the acre. These are all above the provincial averages. Soft red winter wheat is 101, soft white winter wheat is 99 and hard red winter wheat is 97. Those are great yields for Huron—Bruce. We are very proud of that. It is a testament to the dedication of farmers up and down every country road.

I attended a co-op annual general meeting, of which I am a member. What really struck me during his comments, and he does not owe me anything, as I am just there as a member and not as an elected member of Parliament, was that he was talking about the best way we could help farmers. He is looking at it himself.

He said that the best way we could help farmers was to actually cut that carbon tax. He said that farmers saw it every month on their bills and that it was incredible how much that was adding up. He said that the best way to provide them with relief was to cut it 10¢ a litre.

On another side note, they also sell fuel. They sell gasoline and diesel as well. As a side note, 17¢ a litre, on average, is the carbon tax on gasoline for people who drive to work and back, or to take their kids to hockey or baseball or to take their parents to doctors' appointments, maybe in the city.

Bill C-234 is for farmers. At the end of the day, if it accomplishes one thing, it is to cut the carbon tax on farming. It is an inflationary tax, it is relentless, it is indexed and it will continue to rise. At the end of the day, if the members of Parliament in the House could cut this tax, it would provide relief to farmers. At the very end of the economic chain, it would provide relief to Canadians, who go to the grocery store every week to provide for themselves. That is a fact. If we can do one thing in the House to start off the session, it would be to do that.

Farmers work hard. They use technology. I heard something from a couple of Liberal-appointed senators and it was disappointing to hear what they had to say. I am not putting words in their mouths. We can go back and look at the comments they made in committee. We can go back and look at the comments they made in their speeches. They said that farmers were laggards when it came to technology. That is the furthest thing from the truth.

Farmers across the country are some of the most progressive business people we will find. Whether in their barns, their greenhouses, their tractors or even their financial accounting software, they are very progressive. They take on technology whenever they can and they make it more efficient, so they have more crops to feed more people and to feed the world, which is really what they are doing.

I would like to set the record straight there. Farmers are very advanced in their implementation of technology. If we look at the last 10 or 15 years, even 20 years, it is night and day. Wherever there is an opportunity, farmers are doing it. They are doing it for yield and they are also doing it for the betterment of their land.

If we look at agriculture in the last number of years, we can see the inflation with which farmers are dealing, such as increased costs in machinery. Increased costs in all inputs. Fertilizer, pesticide sprays and seed inputs are all increasing. Rent, land, and the cost of building sheds and grain storage units have all gone up.

Agriculture is not a high-margin business. We have talked about this before in the House of Commons. Farmers are price-takers; they are not price-makers. They take what they can get on the open market and what the basis is in Chicago. That is the reality of agriculture.

Any time the government can help them, for example, by cutting the carbon tax, it is a huge relief. As I have mentioned in the House many times, one example is a hog farmer down the road from where I grew up. A year ago, his bill just for the natural gas he used on his farm was $4,300. The carbon tax on that bill was $3,300. If we think about that, how does that make sense? How does it make sense for farmers, who have invested hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of dollars on their farm to make the highest-quality food and have the highest-quality crops out there, to get bills like that? It is not feasible.

As I have said, it will continue to increase every year until 2030-31, and it will put a lot of farmers out of business. At that point in time, we will have to be concerned about food sovereignty not only in our country, but we will also have to be concerned about the amount of food we export around the world to feed other nations. It really is a precarious time.

Let us think about it. Many people have said it in the House, as has the the leader of our party, that it is cheaper to put a load of food or produce on a transport truck in Mexico and ship it through many states to bring it to Canada. It is cheaper to truck food from Mexico than it is to grow it on a farm here and sell it at a farmer's market or into the open market.

How does that make sense for Canadians? How does that make sense for Canadian farmers? How does that make sense for the environment? It just does not make sense at all.

Speaking of the environment, the Liberal government has asked farmers to pay a steep price with this carbon tax it has hammered them with, but when has it ever recognized the environmental good they do? There is a rebate, $1.70-something per $1,000 of allowable expenses, so if a farmer has $1 million of allowable expenses on their farm, they will get $1,700 back in rebates. That is a slap in the face.

Farmers who have woodlots on the farms they have maintained in Ontario, where the emerald ash borer is, have harvested the trees and made use of them, but they have lost that. They have ethical woodlot practices.

In the fall, a lot of farmers nowadays are planting fall cover crops. They do that on their own, because it is good for the soil and for their land, and it increases the humus matter in the soil. That is a fact.

With respect to crop rotation, I will speak specifically about the province of Ontario. The crops I mentioned in the beginning are used for crop rotation. It is good for the soil. It helps minimize the pests in the environment that impact the crops, which is good. Environmental farm plans and nutrient-management plans are all things that farmers do to be good neighbours and good stewards of the land.

Of course, with technology, no-till drilling goes back a long way. Quite a few years ago now, in the eighties, I can remember as a kid going out to Don Lobb's farm, and the University of Guelph at Ridgetown was out there doing plot experiments to perfect that. There were a number of farmers in Huron County and other counties that started this in the region. It has grown and is continuing to grow. Now we see how they even rip small sections of land where the seeds are going in to preserve the soil and the humus and not disturb it, because they know the value of that.

I will go on to one more highlight. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has done at least two studies on this bill, Bill C-234. According to his last report, by 2030-31, the Liberal government will have taken nearly $1 billion out of farmers' pockets because of the carbon tax. Think about that. Farming is a high-capital, low-margin business that provides food for Canadians to eat. It has very low margins, and the Liberal government is taking $1 billion out of the back pockets of farmers. That is really unconscionable to me.

The last thing I will highlight is the piece of the bill that has been sent back from the Senate. I understand the independence of the Senate. The bill is now back in the hands of the House of Commons, where members of Parliament are going to decide how it is going to go. What I would ask of members of Parliament in the other political parties is this. Let us not drag it out. Let us not delay the bill longer than it has already been delayed. It is already two years old. We can have some debate. We can hear what the other parties are thinking: if they have changed their minds, if they like it better, and so on. Over the last two years a lot has changed in the economy, such as interest rates and inflation, and these are things that are impacting farmers everywhere they go.

Therefore, I would ask the Liberal Party specifically to allow some of its members to have a say, but to be reasonable. Let us not kick this too far down the road. Let us have good discussions, a good debate and exchange of information, and a timely vote on this to send it back to the Senate and let the senators deal with it again. I think that is the reasonable and logical way to do it because, at the end of the day, members are not helping me, but helping the farmers at home. When we can directly help farmers and indirectly help consumers, that is great.

Thank you for the time, Mr. Speaker, and I will take some questions.

[Points of Order, December 12th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I would ask the parliamentary secretary to retract his comments and apologize. If he does not want to, then I suggest we move on to the next speaker and continue debate.

[Carbon Pricing, December 5th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister, the ag minister and the environment minister are simply not listening to farmers.

A pork farmer with a pork farm just down the road from where I grew up had a natural gas bill in February that was $4,300. His carbon tax was $3,300, or 75%.

How can any farmer make a living when farmers have to pay that much carbon tax on the natural gas they use on their farms? When will the Prime Minister take the tax off farmers' families and make it fair for farmers?

[Business of Supply, November 28th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, they are just saying to call her up and let her know, and she had no problem playing games. As far as her safety goes, I do not know about that, and the member who asked the question does not know either, because I am sure she never talked to her. We just hope that everybody is safe when in politics, and I would leave it at that. Our focus is that we want the bill to be addressed in the Senate. We have never asked for any special favours on the bill; we just want the vote to occur.

[Business of Supply, November 28th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I have never heard the member get up and say anything about somebody like Denise Batters. I have never heard her have any concern for some of the stuff that Senator Denise Batters goes through. With respect to the particular senator that the member spoke about, I really do not know what the whole deal is with what happened, to be honest; I have other things to think about. However, I can say that posting somebody's office phone number, which is on the website anyway, and their email—