Ben Lobb

[Business of Supply, November 28th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, with respect to trade, the former ag minister blew it on the South Korean import rule concerning beef cattle over 30 months of age. The current finance minister pretty well blew it on the European free trade agreement; the Stephen Harper government had it to the one-yard line, and she just about fumbled it into the end zone.

With respect to the environment, farmers get no credit for ethically managed woodlots and no credit for planting fall cover crops. They get no credit from the government for crop rotations, for environmental farm plants or for nutrient management plans. They do all that, and the Liberal government gives them zero credit. That is even further frustrating to farmers. They are paying all of this carbon tax and treating their farm like their child, beautifully, but they get no credit, and that is a real shame.

[Business of Supply, November 28th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington.

With regard to Bill C-234, I would like to recognize a couple of people, the first being the member for Brandon—Souris. Before he was elected, he worked in the private sector. He was one of the people who gave the idea for the beginnings of this bill in the last Parliament to the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South, which was Bill C-206, which, at that time, talked about taking the carbon tax off the drying of grains.

With Bill C-234, we look to, as we always do in life or in legislation, trying to make it better. We included the heating of livestock barns and buildings used to grow food, such as mushrooms that we see at grocery stores.

I wanted to recognize those individuals, as well as the Conservative agriculture critic. He has done a great job and was a big advocate after the last election to include this.

Like I said, these are the basics of the bill. At a time when farmers are seeing increased costs due to inflation everywhere they look, this bill is very timely. Over the last two years, farmers have seen a tremendous increase in the cost of purchasing farm machinery, such as tractors. Some of the costs have skyrocketed, including the cost of carrying debt, such as mortgages on farms. For a lot of farmers, a portion of it is fixed and a portion of it is variable. They may also carry operating lines of credit, maybe for inputs or livestock, whatever it may be at the time. All these things have become more expensive, in large part, due to government spending. The amount of debt, inflation and printing money have caused this. Farmers have borne a terrible amount of the brunt on this.

In addition to that, a couple of years ago, we will remember how much the cost of fertilizer increased for farmers, even when some farmers had prepaid. In the previous fiscal year, farmers had prepaid, only to find out they had to pay more when it came time to put the fertilizer on their land. They have had some really challenging times, but they are still committed to being farmers and they are still committed to feeding Canadians. Canadian farmers, as we know, help feed the world many times over.

That is why this bill happens to be the right bill at the right time. It has been almost two years since I introduced this bill in the House of Commons. It will, hopefully, be voted on tonight or in the near future.

Farmers need a break. We have heard in question period, statements and speeches what farmers are facing with the carbon tax. The other thing that is frightening to farmers is they know this is not the end of it. They know that on April 1 every year, the carbon tax will go up until 2030, to the point where, in many cases, the profit margin will no longer be there at all for small farmers. They will have to make a decision whether to carry on or what to do.

That is why this bill is so timely and it is so important for the Senate to make a decision on it. I am open to whatever way the Senate votes. If it votes it up or down, I can live with either result, but what I find unfortunate is that there are some games being played. I do not mind if a committee takes the time to study it, which it did. I appeared at committee and it was a great honour. However, when amendments are put forward after virtually the same amendments were voted on at report stage and defeated, it does resemble a bit of a game, which is unfortunate.

The people having the games played on them are Canadian farmers. It is not me or the members of Parliament in this House of Commons who suffer. It is Canadian farmers who suffer.

There is another thing that really hits home. I hear it every weekend when I am at community events at home. I see the farmers in my area, when I drive up and down the county roads. They are still taking their corn off. The corn that is being taken off on November 28 needs to be dried. That is the reality. That uses propane and natural gas. Had the Senate dealt with this bill in the spring, farmers drying their crops today would not be paying the carbon tax. Farmers heating their broiler barns, their turkey barns, their layer barns and their hog barns would not be paying the carbon tax.

People have come up to me, and I imagine they are of all political stripes, and they cannot believe that this bill has not been passed. They understand. As many members have talked about today, this is not the only place it has touched the price of food. It is passed along many times. One pork farmer in my riding told me that the fuel surcharge, just the surcharge, for him to ship his 20,000 hogs a year to the processing plant, was $20,000.

In the big scheme of a significant operation, it is not going to put the fellow out of business, but it is $20,000. That is $20,000 he could have put into his operation. That is $20,000 he could have put on his line of credit or paid down his debt.

There is a pork farmer in my riding whose carbon tax bill in the month of March 2023 was $3,500. The member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands, who sits right beside me, talked about one yesterday. It was $1,500 a month. The leader of the Conservative Party has a mushroom grower in his riding who pays $10,000, $11,000, $12,000 a month. Farmers cannot afford this any longer. They need Canadian lawmakers, senators and members of the House of Commons to make a decision and move forward on this.

The other key point is that when it becomes more cost-effective, cheaper, for grocery stores and retailers to buy food, vegetables or whatever, from Mexico, California or Colorado, put it in a transport truck and ship it for five days to Ontario, where I live, there is something wrong with the cost structure in Canada and in my province of Ontario. Carbon tax is one of them.

We need to address this. It should not be political. One of the most important things a country can do, in addition to defending its citizens, is be able to feed its citizens, to have enough adequate food and nutrition to feed its citizens. We have had a lot of discussion about food banks, but the very idea of having a sustainable food production system, a full cycle in our country is one of the most important things.

In the last eight years, we have seen an erosion in food sovereignty in Canada. A number of processing plants have closed because of cost and mismanagement at the government level on trade. There are all sorts of issues on that. It is very important.

The last thing I will say is that we can drive up and down the rural roads and see people we have known pretty much our entire lives, people who have worked hard around the clock. They can be seen out at 11 o'clock at night combining their corn, harvesting their corn. We know they are doing it for Canadians. They like to make a little money, but it is a passion, a livelihood. It is their life.

We have to make sure that we get this right. We have to make sure that we take the carbon tax off and make it affordable for the consumer, make it right for the environment and make it right for the farmer.

[Carbon Pricing, November 27th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting answer.

The Liberal government has never respected the environmental good that farmers do and it proves it every day by hitting Canadian farmers with high carbon taxes. One farmer in the Conservative Leader's riding had an $11,000 carbon tax bill in one month.

With the Liberal carbon tax, it is now cheaper for Canadians to buy food trucked from Mexico than from local Canadian farms. How is that right? How is that good for the Canadian consumer, the environment or Canadian farmers?

[Carbon Pricing, November 27th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-234 would take the carbon tax off propane and natural gas used on farms. Five premiers, countless farm organizations and farmers from across the country have asked the Prime Minister to axe the carbon tax and give farmers a break.

The carbon tax on farmers is where food inflation and high grocery costs start for Canadian families.

Will the Prime Minister and the environment minister stop interfering with the Senate and let the vote happen tomorrow?

[Carbon Tax, November 21st, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, today, farmers from across the country are in Ottawa for a rally outside the Senate. Why are they out there today when they should be finishing their corn harvest? They are asking a few Liberal-appointed senators to stop playing games and put my bill, Bill C-234, to a vote. It is a bill that would axe the carbon tax from propane and natural gas to dry their crops and heat their livestock barns on farm. Axing the carbon tax would save Canadian farmers $1 billion over the next 10 years.

Farmers feed cities and they help feed the world. At a time when the high-priced, high-inflation Liberal government should be helping farmers, it instead tells them to install a heat pump in their hog barn. How out of touch can they be?

Whether they are trying to raise a family, enjoy retirement or make an honest living as a farmer, Canadians know one thing: After eight long years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost.

[National Security Review of Investments Modernization Act, October 30th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, the member is not wrong. That deal should never have been approved. There is no way. I remember reading about the deal, and I thought it was bad. This is why it is so important that they come, in the beginning, to the office and disclose. That would give the government and the officials plenty of time, and it should be reviewed at committee, as well. We should give the committees more power.

[National Security Review of Investments Modernization Act, October 30th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, that is from my neighbour, who sits right behind me. He is a decent fellow; he has not hit me in the back of the head yet, so I appreciate that.

The fines and penalties are increasing. It is so important for businesses to know that Canada is open for business, but if someone is going to do an acquisition, they have to go into the office and disclose what their intentions are with the Canadian business and how they would like to conduct themselves. To answer the member's question, today there is not enough of that done in the beginning. Then we get into these 11th-hour scenarios where it is not good for the business or the government of the day, and the wrong decision is usually made.

[National Security Review of Investments Modernization Act, October 30th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, it is important. Obviously, it has been over a decade since the act was reviewed, so that is great. However, the member sometimes gets mixed up on the trade deals. If we look back at the trade deals that have been approved in the last few years, they were all done by the Conservative Party. We took it right to the one-yard line. With the European trade deal, I know that the finance minister, who was the trade minister at the time, fumbled about 10 times before she got it into the end zone.

The member for Abbotsford, Gerry Ritz and Stephen Harper are really the people who did 99% of the work. Yes, the Liberals bobbled the football into the end zone, and they get the touchdown, but the heavy lifting was done by our government in previous years.

[National Security Review of Investments Modernization Act, October 30th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to present here today with respect to Bill C-34.

Before I start, I want to recognize a couple of local baseball teams in my riding that won provincial championships. This summer, it was the Kincardine Cardinals 13U baseball team and the Kincardine Cubs senior team. In our region in western Ontario, there is some of the best baseball in the country and maybe in North America, so it is great that both of those teams won and brought titles back to Huron—Bruce.

I would also like to recognize Mary Hughes and John Westerman from Bayfield, who hosted a tremendous event Saturday night. They invited all the volunteer firefighters from Bayfield to attend. It was a random act of generosity, and it was great to be a part of that. I congratulate them and thank all the volunteer firefighters.

When we look at the purpose of the Investment Canada Act and the depth and breadth of the goals of Industry Canada, it is probably very helpful to go to the beginning of some of the ideas and innovation in Canada, which is at the university and college level across this country. However, as some members here today with whom I am on committee would know, we are studying a number of topics at committee, one of which is state-owned interference at the university level. If Canadians read the headlines from a year ago, they would realize that there are some very concerning activities going on in Canadian universities, mainly through the People's Republic of China and some of the universities that focus on its defence.

My point is that if we think of a young person in university today, studying very hard in engineering or something to do with computers, for example, they would finish their degree, maybe get into some research afterwards and work in a few labs. However, they are really working to come up with the next idea that is going to be a game-changer for Canada, and there are all sorts of federal and provincial dollars. There are hundreds of millions, maybe billions of dollars that are allocated through NSERC, CIHR and SSHRC, all in the hope that this will be great for Canada, for innovation and for the next generation of businesses in this country. It is a multi-year, multi-decade, lifetime's worth of investment, on behalf of the Canadian taxpayer through these organizations, in the young people, professors and researchers in our country. Out of all of those years of effort and partnerships with companies and so forth, there are good ideas and there are businesses that are started in this country. However, what is of concern today and going forward is the high cost of protection that is going to be required at Canadian universities that do the research.

At our committee last week, the SSHRC president, Ted Hewitt, announced that there is $125 million, $25 million a year, being allocated to universities to try to sift through all the applications to determine if there are safety risks to the research and whether the research is going to be brought back to the People's Republic of China and could be used against Canada or whether the idea could just basically be stolen. This is just the beginning of the high cost of protection and security in this country, which leads to looking at the Investment Canada Act and the benefit test, and many other items within the act. I will give one example, a little outside what we are looking at with Bill C-34, but in parallel: the recent purchase, within the last year, of Magnet Forensics located in Waterloo. If we look at the education and experience that those individuals have, and likely the grants they applied for with their business, whether through SR&ED, IRAP or any of the other taxpayer-led initiatives that provide ideas and support for these businesses, there is a lot of money that goes into this.

There is a lot of value being given to the Canadian taxpayer, including by the individuals who own the company and the workers who work there. However, the company was sold for $1.8 billion to a private equity company in the States. The threshold for the transaction to be reviewed is $1.9 billion.

Now, I am not saying this is a coincidence. I know there is a different threshold being proposed through this bill for different transactions. However, this one was an American company; obviously, we have a trade deal with the United States, and that was the threshold if purchased by a private equity company.

After all those years of support, all those years at university and everything else that goes into it, including SR&ED and IRAP, it is sold for $1.8 billion. I am happy for the founders. That is a great payday. However, if we think about it, eventually the majority of those jobs are going to head to the United States, and all those years are gone.

We have to ask ourselves this: Is that a net benefit for the Canadian taxpayer, the workers or the country that has provided all those dollars of support? We really have to question it.

I will give another example, and it is a company that I used to work for: Wescast Industries in Wingham, Ontario. At one time, it was the largest exhaust manifold supplier in the world, producing over 10 million manifolds a year. It was bought 11 years ago by Bohong Group, which is financed by the China Development Bank. The founders of the company, the LeVan family, were ready to move on. They needed a buyer. This one came forward.

However, I believe, if we look at it, that this acquisition should have been reviewed. It was much lower than the threshold, but if we look at the knowledge and the value that those jobs provided this country and my region, there is no way that the transaction should have been approved. Everybody in our area, of course, all the guys and gals I used to work with, knew what they were going to do. They were going to take all the ideas, skill and know-how back to their headquarters. Basically, when the bones were picked, they would shut it down and operate solely in China.

That is in fact what has happened over 11 years. That is a shame. It was a great place to work. There were so many people to get to know. There were thousands of employees across southwestern Ontario.

These are examples of where the Investment Canada Act and the net benefit test could do more. Specific to this bill, one great amendment that was accepted by the government was our amendment that set the level to zero for a review, when a company has connections or ties to being state owned. Therefore, everything would be reviewed, and we could look at it. This also lends itself to my belief that it should be more than just the minister. I realize that, in the beginning, it is not. However, at the end, the final decision should be from a cabinet that consists of members from all provinces and, hopefully, some of the territories, to really drill down and decide if it is a net benefit to the country. I think we will find that a lot of these acquisitions are not.

Another great example is one I made a note of. If members remember, a number of years ago, there was Retirement Concepts, which sold 20 or 21 retirement communities to Anbang Insurance. This should never have been approved. It was to nobody's net benefit in British Columbia. There is no way that a Chinese state-run insurance company should have been operating health care in this country.

I think we are coming to a close. I look forward to questions.

[Carbon Pricing, June 19th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the reality of the environment minister's numbers is that he shut the economy down for two years. It is the only way he met his targets. Next week, kids across Canada are going to be looking forward to their summer break. Dreams of baseball and soccer tournaments, maybe a modest camping trip or maybe even going to Toronto watch the Blue Jays is what they are looking forward to. Unfortunately, the Liberals, on July 1, are bringing in another carbon tax: $2,300 a year to Ontario households. Their dreams of a summer holiday are vanishing.

When are Liberals going to get off Canadians' backs, go to their—