Bill C-206 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (qualifying farming fuel)

This enactment amends the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to extend the exemption for qualifying farming fuel to marketable natural gas and propane.

Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a great honour to rise to speak to Bill C-234. I would like to acknowledge the member for Huron—Bruce, who is bringing forward this bill, which is a revival of what was called Bill C-206 in the 43rd Parliament. I would like to indicate that, as the New Democratic Party agriculture critic, I will be giving my support to the bill, demonstrating that we review every private member's bill that comes before us based on its merits and the principle behind it. I feel the principle behind this bill is sound.

I have been our party's agriculture critic for four years now. I have spent four years on the Standing Committee on Agriculture, and I am very familiar with the predecessor to this bill. I was present on the agriculture committee when we did a deep dive into the provisions of Bill C-206. As I will reflect later in my speech, this is something that the agricultural community is most definitely calling for.

Before I get into that, it is important to set the table with regard to the difficulties that are being posed by climate change. The fact that human-caused climate change is occurring is no longer in dispute. It is very much a verifiable scientific fact, and many parts of the world are starting to face a climate emergency. It is one that will manifest itself in increasingly costly ways, not only to our natural environment, but also to our economy. We will see more extreme weather events, and it is our farmers who will suffer because, as I have heard time and time again at the agriculture committee, farmers are on the front lines of this fight.

This climate emergency is leading to changing precipitation patterns. We are seeing increased occurrences of catastrophic flooding and catastrophic droughts. These are going to have real economic costs. We saw that in my home province of British Columbia last year when, in the space of a few months, we went from a heat dome and massive wildfires to flooding that essentially cut the port of Vancouver off from the rest of the country. That led to major disruptions for our agricultural producers in the prairie provinces.

We as a country need to acknowledge this fact, and we need to put in place policy that is going to treat it like the serious matter that it is. It is the fight of the 21st century. Unfortunately, the continuing political fight that we have seen in this place over the carbon tax has ignored many of these realities and it has sidelined the leadership that we as a country need to take against climate change. However, what has been missing in this conversation is the important role that farmers and our agriculture sector do and can play in this conversation. That centres on the theme of carbon sequestration.

It is time for us to start placing our farmers up on a pedestal and acknowledging the important work they do. The only way we are going to meaningfully solve this climate change problem is if we significantly reduce the amount of carbon in our atmosphere and find ways to put it in the soil where it can play a stable role.

I have been inspired by so many in Canada's agriculture sector who are adopting regenerative farming practices. They are going beyond sustainability as a principle and are observing the patterns and principles in ecosystems to reduce their input and help purify the air, the water, rebuild the soil and increase diversity. In this way, our agricultural leaders are building resilience against climate change by tackling and overcoming challenges without being completely overwhelmed by them, and we must find ways as parliamentarians in this place to be strong and firm partners with those leaders.

In 2020, I took a trip to the interior of southern British Columbia where I talked with ranchers who had won sustainability awards. I do want to acknowledge the work of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, which are showing the way by trying to replicate the natural ecosystem that used to exist on Canada's Prairies and that requires a symbiotic relationship between plants and animals through rotational grazing techniques, which actually leads to healthier grasslands, which in their own way are putting carbon back into the soil where we need to put it.

Despite the advances that we have made in good agricultural practices in the fight against climate change, it is still an inescapable fact that farmers today do depend on fossil fuels. This is especially true when it comes to the drying of grain.

Many of my colleagues here will remember the wet autumn of 2019, which was called the harvest from hell. That was extensive and prolonged rainfall that happened right before and during the harvest in many parts of Canada. Of course, the early snowfalls and frosts also ruined many crops. Farmers in those situations were forced to use propane and natural gas heaters to dry their grain. Without the use of those dryers, their cash crops would have become worthless because rot would have set in, and it would have been a massive economic hit.

As it stands, there are currently no viable commercial alternatives to the use of propane and natural gas for the operation of these dryers. This was explained very clearly to the agriculture committee in the previous Parliament. During that time, when we were examining Bill C-206, we received eight briefs and had 29 witnesses over six meetings. In particular, I will highlight some of the testimony that we received from the Agri-Food Innovation Council.

The council acknowledged that we want to move to alternative and renewable energy sources. It also pointed out the fact that we are not yet at a point where farmers have those alternative options available. Many of the renewable or clean energy options are still in an experimental stage and they have nowhere near the scaling-up capability that farmers need to employ them on a mass scale. With that being said, there was also an acknowledgement that Ottawa can play a key role in helping develop further research into alternative, renewable and clean energy sources.

I also want to acknowledge that we had several witnesses come before the committee who expressed concern with Bill C-206. However, again, when I pressed them on the fact that there were no viable alternatives, I did not, in my own opinion, hear a convincing argument to lead me to go the other way. There is a very real interest in trying to repeat the work that we did at the agriculture committee. Let us bring Bill C-234 there, so that we can again do a deep dive into it and find ways, hopefully, of making some slight improvements.

It does not need to be said in this place that the value of our agricultural crops out of the Prairies, especially with grains and canola, numbers in the billions of dollars and is an incredible economic driver in those regions. Those sectors need to have our support, especially when they are facing challenges and especially when no viable alternatives exist. It is a significant part of our economy as many of my colleagues will attest.

In the final couple of minutes with respect to Bill C-234, I will say that the main thing it would do is make definitions as to what a qualifying farm fuel is and what eligible farming machinery is. With respect to a qualifying farm fuel, the bill would be making sure that natural gas and propane are provided in the list of fuels. With respect to eligible farming machinery, I think this is an improvement on the previous Bill C-206. The bill is specifically making reference to grain drying but also making room for providing heating or cooling in a building. I will just highlight that this particular section might be too broad a definition, and it is something that I am interested in taking a closer look at in committee. That being said, there is some room for improvement and some room for negotiation on hopefully improving this bill and reporting it back to the House.

In conclusion, I hope that, in our conversation on Bill C-234, we also take this opportunity to acknowledge the incredible costs that farmers are bearing. This has been detailed quite considerably by the National Farmers Union, which has recognized that Canadian farm debt is now listed at over $100 billion and has nearly doubled since the year 2000. Since 1990, the corporations that supply fertilizers, chemicals, machinery, fuels, technology services and credit have captured nearly all of farm revenues, leaving farmers with just 5% of the total revenue.

While I think that the measures in Bill C-234 are going to have a measurable impact, we also need to use this opportunity to have a broader conversation on how we support farmers and make sure that, in most of the work that they are doing, the financial rewards are in fact staying in their pockets.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, as the NDP's agriculture critic, I look forward to supporting this bill so that we can have a closer look at it in the agriculture committee, just as I did with Bill C-206 in the previous Parliament.

We often are talking about the punitive aspects of policy, but the member did talk a bit about the work that farmers are doing. I was wondering if he could expand on the amazing potential that exists on farms for renewable energy sources. If we look at the area that is on barns, we could help farmers with solar panel installations. There are also some tremendous possibilities to use natural gas that is naturally derived from the decomposition of materials on farms. Could the member expand on how Ottawa can maybe partner with those farms, instead of having an Ottawa-knows-best approach, and really try to put those farmers on a pedestal, show good examples and maybe increase the knowledge transfer so that all regions across Canada are benefiting from that knowledge?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

moved that Bill C-234, An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today on this bill. Through the years I have had the honour and privilege of presenting private member's bills and motions. I had one pass many years ago, and I had one or two that did not pass.

First of all, I would like to thank the member of Parliament for Foothills and the member of Parliament for Northumberland—Peterborough South who presented Bill C-206 in the last Parliament. I would also thank the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound and all of the other members of Parliament in my party and caucus who have a deep love and admiration for agriculture and the farm families that do the work each and every day.

The issue that I am trying to fix with this private member's bill is the application of the carbon tax on natural gas and propane. It is for on-farm agriculture uses to dry grain and heat livestock barns where there may be a variety of livestock, but mainly poultry and pork in these cases. The problem is with the current carbon tax on these areas. I will give one example of a pork farmer in my riding who sent me his December usage of natural gas. The natural gas bill for his hog barn was $11,391 in total. The carbon tax was $2,918, which is 25% of the base bill. When we throw the HST on, which is almost $1,500, 34% of the bill is in carbon tax and HST. That is really the problem.

There are tight margins in agriculture and, when we get into the drying of grains in the fall, these are foods that we eat. Farmers are price-takers; they are not price-makers. They do not set the price; they take the price. Anybody in the House or those listening today well understand the issue with that. On the flip side, when it is time to pay for inputs, machinery, etc., we obviously know the price. There are a lot of improvements we could make.

One of my other issues with the carbon tax specifically on farmers, which I have said in the House of Commons before, is that farm producers and farmers do not get credit for any of the environmental good that they do on their farms up and down the country roads. If we look at what farmers are able to do on their farms, first of all, they get no credit for any of the carbon sequestration of their crops. They get no credit for their grasslands or woodlots. There is no credit for that.

We are trying to right an environmental wrong and a taxation wrong to make it fair for farmers. It is very difficult to recognize all of the different ways in which farmers do good. Putting a carbon tax on their efforts does not really recognize the environmental benefit they have. Many members of Parliament in the House today have had the opportunity to tour many farms, conservation areas and livestock barns, and they see the good work that they do.

Another issue that is recognized in this bill is that farmers are always asked to be the government's line of credit. People may ask what that means. What I mean by this is that, if we look at the business risk management programs available to farmers, AgriStability being one of them, if they were able to trigger a payment with AgriStability, their expenses are incurred so much earlier. Farmers carry the cost and at the end they receive. It is the same with HST. There have been issues through the years with certain producers where their HST was hung up, so that they are the line of credit in some cases. It was three months, four months, six months, maybe even a year before they would get their HST rebate.

Now we have another program that is going to create a level of bureaucracy. We have a program that is once again going to ask the farmer to be the line of credit. To give an example, farmers could pay a propane or natural gas bill on their poultry or hog barn in January and February of 2022 and that almost $3,000 in carbon tax they paid on their bill could be carried all the way through the year. They could dry their grains in September, October or November, depending on how the harvest went, and then carry all of those costs all through the entire year and file their taxes, depending on when their fiscal year end is, in June of 2023. When do members think those farmers would receive their rebate?

That is a long time to be once again asking farm producers or farm families to carry these expenses. Then we also calculate the increasing costs of all the inputs, whether feed for livestock or fertilizer. We have seen the crazy prices. Their lines of credit are continually edging up and now they are faced with doing this.

According to Bill C-8, in the fall update on page 83, the rebate is $1.73. When I read that I thought it was per hundred dollars of eligible expenses, but it is actually per thousand dollars of eligible expenses. Therefore, if farmers have a million dollars in eligible expenses on their farms, they would not even receive a $1,800 rebate.

For the farm I spoke about a second ago, one bill was almost $3,000, so it is not neutral. It will not be neutral. If there are statistics to show otherwise, I would like to see them, but based on page 83 of this statement, it does not look like it. A month or two ago, the member for Foothills showed me a bill for a farmer in his province, and it might have been in his riding, I cannot remember, that was twice that amount. Can members imagine $5,500 being paid in carbon tax for one month? Therefore, $1,700 is not going to cut it.

We have talked about carbon sequestration through their crops, grasslands and woodlots. Farmers plant trees on their farms. They have windrows. In Ontario, and I am sure in many other provinces, we have nutrient management plans for how and when manure is spread across their fields. With technology we have precision spraying of herbicides and pesticides, and even precision fertilizing. This is not our great-grandfather's farms. These are very progressive farms across this country today with a high degree of professionalism and a love for agriculture and the environment.

If we take a woodlot in Huron County or Bruce County, we will see some of the best-managed woodlots in all the land. That is over the last 10 years when we have been dealing with the emerald ash borer on our ash trees. Most of those have been cleared out of woodlots and maple and other trees have come up in their place, but these are well-maintained woodlots that sequester carbon.

The other thing I would like to mention is crop rotation. I know the member for Foothills brought it up in question period today and the agriculture minister made a comment the other day in question period about it, as if it was some sort of new idea. I am sure she misspoke in question period, but we can go back to textbooks from probably the twenties and thirties talking about crop rotation and crop cover. Most of the farmers in my area plant late summer and early fall crops as well for cover crops. There is quite a bit that goes on.

The other thing I would like to recognize is all the conservation authorities and environmental groups in our communities. One that is not too far from where I live is the Pine River Watershed Initiative Network, which plants trees and manages water on farms. There are also crop and soil groups in Huron County, Bruce County and Grey County, all the way through the area, doing some amazing research on drainage and being able to hold some of those spring rains and thaws, hold some of that water, back in the drain itself. It is a very exciting technology.

Another thing I would like to talk about is our food sovereignty. We have seen a lot of this in the last number of years, maybe perhaps most recently in the past little while. In Ontario, we ship hogs, for example, to Burlington and other places like Conestoga. We also ship hogs to Quebec. We actually ship hogs to Manitoba as well, to Brandon. Although it is good for them to have those hogs in the production line, it makes no sense at all for farmers in southwestern Ontario to ship hogs in transport trucks across the provinces to their destination. We should be able to process them in our own regions. For that, I would say that I do think the government needs to take a real long look at food sovereignty in each province and, of course, in our country, as well as identifying strategic mines or opportunities.

Phosphates are a great example, with the latest embargo and tariffs from Russia, of where there are opportunities in our own country to speed up environmental assessments. Do it right but make sure they are streamlined so that we can mine our own goods and raw materials in our own country to support the entire cycle of agriculture in our country. Today we do not have that and I do think that should be a priority.

How much money does it take to make one dollar on a farm? It takes millions, and the margins are tight. People may drive up and down the road if they are going to their cottage or wherever else they are going on a weekend and the might look at how nice the farm looks from the truck they are driving. The reality is that it took multiple generations working seven days a week, 365 days a year, for margins that would put fear into most people. If they knew how much capital investment, debt and line of credit was at risk each and every day to earn a few dollars on $100, they would be so impressed.

The reason I am saying this is that the carbon tax is punitive even for the existence of a farm operation. I have numerous calls in a week from different farmers commenting on the cost of doing business in 2022. Yes, if one were to look at the spot prices or futures prices for soybeans, corn, wheat or any of those, it does look pretty amazing. Unfortunately, for farmers, costs have gone in lockstep. In some cases, they have actually increased at a higher rate.

Where can we help them? We can help them with the carbon tax. We can help them by cutting the carbon tax and eliminating the carbon tax on farms. It does not get recycled. The carbon tax that they collect on farmers does not all go back to farmers. It does not go back into some environmental farm plan. It does not. They may say that it goes in dollar for dollar, but it does not.

The quickest and most efficient way to help agriculture and to recognize the environmental benefit the industry provides the country, without creating a bureaucracy and without hiring consultants to walk the farm, go through the woodlot and come up with an idea of how much was actually sequestered, is to cut it off right at the source. Do not make the farmer be the line of credit for the government on one more program. Do not tell them it is going to be neutral when we know it is $1.73 per thousand dollars. Let us not do that.

There are certain industries, I am sure, in Canada that do not provide a whole lot of environmental benefit to the country. Farming is not one of them. It is an organization with the most grassroots, environmental preservation organizations someone will ever see. If one were to go to a Ducks Unlimited auction or a conservation authority fundraiser, who would be there? It is the townspeople, for sure, but it is also the farmers. The farmers come out. In some cases, it is the conservation authority that gives them a hard time, but they are still out there to support the cause because they understand the relationship between productive land and the environment.

I really enjoyed the debate today. It is an honour to do this. I look forward to having discussions, hearing what the other parties have to say and what their thoughts are, and hopefully, with their good will, seeing it in committee.

I am thankful for the opportunity today and I look forward to the questions.

[Phil King]

I am familiar with Bill C-206 and Bill C-234.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Yes. I meant Bill C-206. My apologies.

[Phil King]

I am familiar with Bill C-206. I think the member said Bill C-216.

Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I hope the member is able to get her technical problems resolved. I was looking forward to enjoying her speech. I know how challenging it can be with technical things.

I want to start with the substance of my speech. Like everyone else today, I am addressing Bill C-8, which is a financial update to the fiscal update.

I am going to talk about some specific issues. Over the next few days, we will have a well-rounded discussion, but today I really wanted to talk about one area specifically, and that is part 1(d). It has to do with the introduction of a refundable tax credit to return fuel charge proceeds to farming businesses in backstop jurisdictions. Before we get into that, I want to talk a little about farmers and how important they are to our economy.

They provide the very sustenance we need every day, including throughout the pandemic. They actually account for nearly 7% of our GDP. In addition to feeding Canada and Canadians, people around the world are counting on our Canadian farmers. We are the fifth-largest agriculture exporter in the world and that provides nearly one in eight Canadians a job. We are one of the world's largest producers in flaxseed, canola, pulses, oats and durum.

Our farmers, despite providing an incredible bounty for us and around the world, have undergone some significant challenges throughout the pandemic. Like everyone else, they fought through the challenges of the pandemic. They also had challenges going into the pandemic, like the harvest from hell in 2019, which had the significant challenge of crops literally rotting in the field because it was so wet and farmers were unable to dry their fields. That harvest exacerbated the challenges our farmers were already facing, such as the self-inflicted wounds from the government in the form of the carbon tax.

The fact is that in some cases there is no doubt that the claims of revenue neutral do apply. If a person lives in a condo in downtown Toronto, there is a very good chance that their rebate is equal to the amount of the carbon tax they pay. However, if someone is a grain farmer in Saskatchewan, there is a very good chance and, in fact, a 100% chance, that they are paying thousands and thousands of dollars in carbon tax while receiving a mere pittance in return from the carbon tax rebate.

That is what led me, after discussions with some of the great advocacy groups for our farmers, to bring in a private member's bill, Bill C-206. Bill C-206 was legislation that would have exempted propane and natural gas from the carbon tax for farmers. It was well received and it created some great discussion. Our stakeholders were very pleased with it.

Initially, if one can believe this, the agriculture minister said that the carbon tax was not significant. Despite me and others receiving carbon tax bills from farmers around this great country in the amount of tens of thousands of dollars, she said it was not that significant.

However, as the bill gained momentum, all of a sudden the tone changed, which was quite odd. She said that there now might very well be an issue. The minister went from “it is not significant” to “it might be an issue at some point”. Then, of course, as we know, later on in the fiscal update, she announced that there would be a rebate program. That rebate would be a $1.47 for every $1,000 of eligible farming expenses, or $1.73 in 2023. We will see the math, but we will see that is not nearly as much carbon tax as farmers are actually paying.

Before we get into that, let us talk about a rebate versus an exemption and why we still need an exemption. A rebate takes money from the farmer, puts it in Ottawa and then takes it back to the farmer. Why would we go through that machination of having it go to Ottawa and then come back to the farmer? Why would we not just leave it in the pockets of farmers?

I can only speculate but I have a couple of ideas. It might be that, in fact, the government wanted to take credit for an idea that came from farmers, and it wanted to have that credit. It just might be that the government wants control of that money. It is funny what happens sometimes when people's money goes to Ottawa. It tends to diminish. In talking to advocacy groups, whether in the agriculture committee or one-on-one conversations with farmers, we hear that they welcome the rebate but they would much prefer an exemption.

Let us move on from there to see how this is calculated.

It is calculated based on eligible farming expenses. For those of you who are not aware, who have never filled out a tax return for a farmer or done it for their own farm, a farmer has to state and list all of their expenses on their tax return. This bill says that, if they had $25,000 or more, based on the amount of those expenses, the more carbon tax rebate they will get. Therefore, they are using eligible expenses as a proxy for the amount. In other words, the more they burn the more they earn. Where have we heard that before? That is exactly how the system works. Only it does not work. In the proxy that they use, they are saying that with more eligible farming expenses there is more carbon tax rebate.

The challenge with that is that not all farmers are the same and not all areas of the country are the same. The temperature is very different in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia than it is in northern Alberta. Of course, the amount of fossil fuels, including natural gas and propane, is different. In addition to that, different industries have different routes to alternatives to fossil fuels. For certain industries, it may take years but it is relatively inexpensive to switch to alternative sources. In contrast, with other industries, it may take decades and hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet we are blanketing it. We are using the same formula for different types of farms.

I am pleased, once again, that the government is starting to recognize that the agriculture industry, in addition to being great stewards of our land, already carbon neutral and ahead of many other industries, is what is called “an emissions-intensive trade exposed industry”. That means that there are certain industries, of which agriculture is certainly one, that do not have the ability to switch to alternatives, and there are certain emissions that may take years, if not decades, to get out of the system, despite the best efforts of our farmers.

The reason, as we heard over and over in the agriculture committee, is twofold. As I already said, there simply are not alternatives, so all this is an increased cost. There is no way to motivate farmers to do something that is impossible. The other part of it is that farmers are price-takers. The price that farmers get for their commodities off the gate is set by markets thousands of miles away from them. Therefore, they are unable to push that cost onto the consumer. That means many of our farmers are struggling to hang on and are struggling to get through Justinflation like everyone else, so it is a significant challenge.

I will just wrap up here by going through an example of how ineffective and insignificant this rebate is. For example, if a grain farm in Manitoba had a gross income of $2 million, which could very easily be a net income of zero, a farmer could expect a rebate of $3,446. That same farm would be paying a carbon tax of almost $10,000. It is woefully insufficient. Farmers need an exemption, not a rebate. They need more money in their pockets, not in Ottawa bureaucrats'.

Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Pursuant to order made on January 25, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-206, under Private Members' Business.

The House resumed from June 21 consideration of the motion that Bill C-206, An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (qualifying farming fuel), be read the third time and passed.

The Environment

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the last petition I am presenting today is from Canadians across the country who are concerned about the increases to the carbon tax. They are supportive of Bill C-206, which will be voted on soon. The petitioners note that there is no carbon tax increase in the Liberals' election platform, and that increasing the carbon tax severely impacts and penalizes those living in rural and farming communities. They are concerned about the increasing costs of heating and groceries, along with how the government is trying to bring about a one-size-fits-all approach instead of co-operating with the provinces.

The petitioners are asking the Liberals to respect their electoral promise and not increase the carbon tax, which disproportionately affects rural and western Canadians. They want co-operation with the provinces and ask for the speedy passage of Bill C-206 so there are exemptions from the carbon tax for certain farm fuels.

Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is absolutely my pleasure to rise on my private member's bill, Bill C-206. To me, it is a fantastic wrap-up for the year, if we go to an election.

A couple of weeks into being an MP, I was in Ottawa and my staffer came to me and said, “You won the lottery”. I did not think I had bought a ticket. What did that mean? I had gotten number 16 on the private member's bills, which then put in place a large canvass of issues: ones that affect people across Canada and in my wonderful riding of Northumberland—Peterborough South. One issue that kept coming up was the impact of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act on the agricultural sector.

I am a very proud advocate for and supporter of the agriculture sector and rural Canada in general. I had been told that dirtier fuels like diesel and gasoline were exempt from the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act but propane and natural gas were not, and of the impact this was having on our local farmers. When I had the opportunity, I was compelled. This was something I had to bring forward for the residents of Northumberland—Peterborough South and for our farmers across the country.

I have enjoyed this process. It has been an iterative process and it has been collaborative. In fact, this whole hour has been an island of its own in a sea of partisanship. This has been full of non-partisanship. We had the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell stand up for my private member's bill and for a commitment he made to a couple of constituents. That is the very epitome of what it is to be from rural Canada and rural Ontario. When we give our word in rural Ontario and in rural Canada, we stand by it. That is exactly what this member did, and I salute him.

One of the issues he brought to attention in his discussion was that things may change, and that very well may be. That is why the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford made a wise amendment to my private member's bill, which was to timeline it and have it go for only 10 years. If technology evolves and, in a decade, we can get to a point where there are biofuels or some other way, we are all for it, but as of now there is no other solution. Climate change is 100% real, and we are all in the House to fight climate change.

In the absence of exemption, we are pushing our farmers out of competitiveness because they are dependent on worldwide markets and on trade boards for pricing. When a cost is increased, such as with the carbon tax, it is put directly on the tables of our farmers. Farmers work so hard. Especially through this pandemic, they have not stopped for a moment, and because of that they have kept our food supply the best in the world. We produce the best grain, the best poultry and the best beef right here in Canada, and we need to make sure that our farmers stay competitive because when we increase input costs, those come directly from the farmers.

These costs not only affect our farmers, but entire rural communities because farmers are largely the ones who drive our economies. They are the ones who go to tractor dealerships and buy tractors. They are the ones who go to local restaurants, and there may be only a couple of restaurants in their towns. They are also the ones who support our local grocery stores, so we need to support and protect our farmers.

As I said, we are at the end of the session. I would like to take a moment to thank all the wonderful members of my constituency of Northumberland—Peterborough South and thank the farmers for this wonderful piece of legislation that I have been able to work with. Particularly, I would like to thank Brandon from the Grain Farmers. I would like to thank my staffer Hailey, who was fantastic and critical to doing this. Most important, I would like to thank all the members of the agriculture community who worked so hard to get this on board. We will have a vote on Wednesday and we will get this across. Hopefully, we will be back in session so we can get this bill passed and help our farmers.

I thank everyone out there so much. It has been a great pleasure to hear all the interventions. Some of my best friends, across the aisle and otherwise, have spoken. The member for Hamilton Centre is even wearing a blue suit for us, if I am allowed to acknowledge that he is in the chamber. I really appreciate that. I thank everyone for their learned interventions and their contributions. It is a great day for farmers.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is certainly an honour to rise on behalf of the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola to speak to my colleagues about Bill C-206, brought by the MP for Northumberland—Peterborough South, who has done an excellent job of finding an issue that resonates not just within his riding but right across the country. I will make a few short points about this, because I believe that Private Members' Business provides the opportunity for members, such as the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South, to bring up issues they are hearing locally to see if they are salient. The adoption of this bill through second reading to committee and now to third reading shows there is a consensus in this country. The Liberals were the only party to vote against it. Every other party recognizes that Canada's future is, in great part, due to agriculture. Many may argue that Canada's past was formulated on that, and I would say that is true, but so is the fact we can do more.

In fact, in the majority government the current ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, put forward the Barton report and said that Canada could do so much more by working with agriculture. It could expand exports and feed people not just across our country but around the globe. It seemed for a while that the report might go somewhere. Most farmers thought it was great to have a government that was focused on that. Unfortunately, the government was not. Rather, it was focused simply on ideology and not on helping to connect the dots to make it work for farmers.

As the MP who sponsored the legislation said, the Grain Farmers of Ontario stated, “there are no readily available grain drying technology replacement alternatives that are cost effective. Drying grain is essential for marketing grain.” This points out that when the input costs are too high, grain farmers will lose traction to other areas that have better prices. Unfortunately, it is a commodity market and we cannot just say, “Buy Canadian because Canada is great.” People in other countries also need to feed their families. If the rate for our grain is too high because of input costs, these people will simply go to another cost provider.

The member of Parliament for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan previously mentioned the concept of carbon leakage, which is where adding extra regulations or taxation beyond that of another jurisdiction eventually makes it difficult for a place with a carbon tax, such as Canada's, to compete. I should know this. A B.C. Liberal government was the first to introduce a carbon tax in British Columbia. It found out quite quickly that the farming community would not be able to be competitive. Therefore, along with cement, it ended up having to subsidize many of those activities.

I am grateful the MP for Northumberland—Peterborough South has brought forward something that will help with that competitiveness. The bill has received broad agreement, with the exception of the Liberal government and its backbenchers. I am sure there was a whipped vote on this, so I know many Liberal members probably felt very sympathetic and wanted to vote alongside the Conservatives, the Bloc and the NDP to support our farmers, but unfortunately it seems many on that side do not question the government's position as much. In fact, some seem to want to carry it on all day long, but enough about the member for Kingston and the Islands.

I just have a few more things to say. The Conservatives believe we should be working with agriculture. The government has put out a clean fuel standard that is so complicated that farmers do not know what opportunities are there. They are worried about getting lost in the paperwork. It is the same government that is making it more difficult for farm operations to use small amounts of propane. The government is basically encouraging them, through red tape, to move to diesel. We know it is not as clean, as easy to store or as manageable. The current government seems to always be at odds with what farmers need and want.

I will say this. Members like the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South and our Conservative caucus will be standing up for our farmers. We will put forward solutions, and we will have a meaningful impact on our greenhouse gas emissions while growing the economy, especially for our farmers.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is great to be back in the House. It is great to have a vast audience across the way to hear what I am about to say, although the member for Kingston and the Islands may not entirely agree with it.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this excellent private member's bill, Bill C-206, from my colleague for Northumberland—Peterborough South, and in particular to talk about the significant failures in environmental policy on the part of government and how it is imposing costs on Canadians without a real plan to help us achieve our environmental objectives vis-à-vis climate change.

I will start briefly by congratulating the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South on his excellent work on this bill and so many other issues. He serves as the shadow minister for revenue in our caucus. When I hear “shadow minister of revenue”, I think it sounds exciting, but he really has grabbed this position by the horns. It has been a pleasure to work with him on a number of revenue issues, including trying to bring about reforms to the direction and control system.

This member has been a great champion of the charitable sector, trying to push the government to reform various aspects of the regulatory and legislative environment around revenue, especially direction and control, to really empower our charitable organizations and help them move forward. I want to congratulate the member for all his work, particularly in this bill, on behalf of farmers in his riding and elsewhere.

Bill C-206 seeks to change the definition of a qualifying farm fuel to include certain fuels not currently included, and that is a step forward in terms of allowing any fuel a farmer would use to be qualified as a qualifying farm fuel, and therefore not having the carbon tax applied to it. Right now, while natural gas and propane are not identified as qualifying farm fuels, gas and diesel are. Not only does this impose additional costs on farmers, but it also gives farmers an incentive to move away from using natural gas and propane and toward using relatively more gas and diesel.

In all likelihood, this is sort of perverse incentive that encourages greater greenhouse gas emissions, so this member is rationalizing the system through this bill in a way that would reduce costs for farmers and help our environment by removing this artificial incentive to use fuels that pollute to a greater extent.

One would think this is a no-brainer on that basis. If this is going to reduce costs for farmers, but is also going to help our environment by providing more of an incentive for farmers to use cleaner fuels, why would it not just be automatic that everyone in this House supports it? The Liberals are stubbornly clinging to their position that the way they did it was fine.

The big problem with these Liberals on so many aspects of their environmental policy is they do not understand the way in which perverse incentives can lead to worse outcomes for the environment, and they are not willing to look critically at the impact of those incentives on behaviour.

One of the issues we have talked about a lot in the Conservative caucus in terms of the failures of the Liberals' environmental policy is this issue of border adjustments. The Liberal approach is to impose carbon taxes on Canadian producers, Canadian farmers and Canadian consumers, but not to apply those same requirements on people outside of Canada who are producing products and then selling those products in the Canadian market.

The effect of this is that it is artificially creating an advantage for foreign producers, the people manufacturing goods and growing crops outside the country who are trying to then sell those products in Canada. One is creating an advantage for those outside Canada who are selling their products to Canada over Canadian producers. This obviously does not make any sense, in terms not only of protecting our own economic interests, but also of responding to the environmental challenges we face.

When one makes it more expensive, and in the case of this particular bill, it relates to farming, and when one imposes more costs on Canadian farmers and therefore tilts the field against our farmers and in favour of people involved in agriculture production outside of the country, that is not helping the environment. It is simply hurting our own economy at no environmental benefit.

We understand, in this caucus, that the challenges we face in terms of climate change are global challenges. Canada has to do its part, but it also has to put in place policies that recognize that emissions can happen outside of the country, and when they happen they impact us. We need to have a structure that integrates an appreciation for the global impact of climate change.

That is why the Conservative environmental plan, for the first time from any party, proposes a strong policy around border adjustment tariffs. There has to be an equivalency between the burden imposed on Canadian producers and the import adjustments that are taking place. We should not be creating a tilted playing field in which we are actually creating an advantage for those producing greenhouse gas emissions outside of the country.

We have raised this issue of perverse incentives: incentives in the policy that actually encourage the wrong kind of behaviour. In the case of border adjustments, we are talking about an incentive that the government has created, in its approach to environmental policy, to move production outside of the country.

If someone is making products for the Canadian market right now in Canada, that person is paying carbon tax. If someone is producing those products outside of Canada in a jurisdiction that does not have a carbon tax and then selling them into Canada, they are in an economically advantageous position, at least vis-à-vis the carbon tax.

This should be fixed so that we have a fair environmental policy that encourages improvements to environmental performance, but does not encourage the wrong kinds of adaptation, such as moving work outside of the country. As other colleagues have talked about as well, in the case of this bill we are talking about another case of perverse incentive. In imposing the carbon tax on certain kinds of fuel and not others, as the system is currently structured, there is an incentive for farmers to use fuels that may be more expensive and that may produce more in the way of emissions.

I think we can do better. The member for Northumberland—Peterborough South has quite rightly seen the opportunity to do better and has thus put forward a bill that seeks to adjust the incentive environment. That is why I am very supportive of this bill. I would encourage all members to be supportive of it and to push the government to recognize something. It has been a talking point of the Liberals for a long time. They say the environment and the economy go hand in hand, yet they impose restrictions and taxes that hurt our economy and provide no benefit to the environment.

It does not make any sense that they would impose obligations on Canadian producers and not have the corresponding adjustments happening at the border. It does not make any sense from an environmental standpoint. If they really believed that there was a unity of objective that could be pursued between the environment and the economy, they would be supportive of the plan that we have put forward, which includes these kinds of border adjustment measures.

In general, in our environmental plan as announced by our leader, the money that is gathered through the deductions paid when people purchase products that emit carbon is put back into their pockets to also pay for adaptation. Our plan is not just about taking money away from people who are producing: It is about giving those resources back to them to invest in adaptations that improve their environmental performance. Our plan is very different from what we see from the Liberal government. The government is trying to use the environment often as a way to raise extra revenue. Our approach is to target measures that are going to improve the environment, while also supporting our industry.

On this side of the House, we recognize the important role of our farmers. We recognize the value of having agricultural production in Canada. We want to strengthen farming communities. We recognize that from a basic security, food security and well-being perspective, it is important to have strong agricultural production happening here in Canada.

We have championed this position, as a party, from the very beginning. We understand that it is not enough to just say it. Within every party we hear members saying flowery words about the agricultural sector, but the Conservative Party has always been there to stand with our farmers, and Bill C-206 is another example of that.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a wonderful Monday morning. After listening to the earlier speeches, I would like to offer my thanks. My thanks to the Liberal Party member, who I just heard speak about the importance of this bill. Then there was my friend from Saint-Jean, and I did not know that she grew up on a farm, so we have a few more things in common. My thanks as well to the member for Hamilton Centre.

This is something that we have to recognize, as it is so important to our farmers. They are the ones who produce our food. They are the ones who, throughout this entire pandemic, have been working to support Canadians. Looking at this bill, I think it is absolutely exceptional.

I would really like to thank my great friend, the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South. I actually drove through parts of his riding yesterday on my return to Ottawa from Elgin—Middlesex—London. The one thing I see in southwestern Ontario is beautiful agricultural land. There are lots of different commodities and sectors, but it is a big farming community. There are some big pockets of cities, but surrounding all of those big cities are acres and acres of great farmland where they are producing necessary commodities and food.

I am going to start with a very simple quote, which actually comes from the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South. He said this at committee, and I want to put it in the record of the House of Commons because this is a very valuable debate.

These are things that are very, very important to my riding, so I appreciate having the opportunity to speak to this bill for the farmers who are living in Elgin—Middlesex—London. I can tell members that, according to Statistics Canada, in 2016 there were 1,930 farm operators in Elgin and 3,260 farm operators in the county of Middlesex. These are things that are very, very important to my riding, so having the opportunity to speak to this bill is an honour.

To quote my good friend, at the agriculture committee he said:

The greenhouse gas pollution pricing currently allows qualifying farmers an exemption on certain farm fuels such as gasoline and diesel; however, it fails to extend that exemption to other fuels such as natural gas and propane. This is challenging on many different fronts, as farmers quite often don't have other options and their only option for their particular industrial equipment may be natural gas and propane.

The science says that natural gas and propane are often cleaner fuels than diesel or gasoline. Why would we not include them in this exemption? Farmers, after all, are stewards of our land and, along with our indigenous people, were some of the first environmentalists standing up for the land and also for the animals and plants located on their properties.

That is why I wanted to talk about propane. I have quite a bias, to be honest. The former chair of the Canadian Propane Association is a resident of Elgin—Middlesex—London. He is also the CFO for Dowler-Karn, which is probably one of the biggest distributors of gasoline and fuel products to multiple farmers in the southwestern Ontario region. I can sit down with him, and when I call Dan Kelly with a question, he will answer. If he does not have the answer, he will find it, because he is out there working for Canadian farmers.

He brought this to my attention as well. He said that Bill C-206 is excellent and what we need to do. He was actually hoping that we would not have to put through Bill C-206, and that the Liberal government may recognize the issue and put it in the budget, but we did not see that. The government does not recognize that it is going to take more than just two or three years for farmers to transition to greener fuels.

I was really happy to see this bill continuing on to third reading, but as the member for Saint-Jean indicated, these are the final days, so I hope that today we can get through this. After we return to Parliament, hopefully this is a bill that the Senate will look at very quickly. This is what our farmers need and what they are asking for.

Continuing on to the Canadian Propane Association, I would like to read a statement I received from it. I am sure everybody has received it as well. It explains why we should support this bill and the importance of the exemption that would come to our farm operators.

This statement, I believe, was put out after the vote on second reading of Bill C-206, a vote of 177-145. All opposition parties actually agreed and recognized that this is something that needs to be done. We saw that the Liberal government was not good with that, yet it may have had to do with it coming from an awesome Conservative. We may never know. However, I will read out the Canadian Propane Association's statement, which says:

“Discouraging the increased use of carbon-intense fuels such as gas and diesel in favour of low-emission energy like propane for agriculture applications would be a win-win for the environment and for farmers’ bottom line,” said Nathalie St-Pierre, President of the Canadian Propane Association....

“The principle of the GGPPA is intended to encourage a reduction in the use of carbon-intense fuels,” said St-Pierre. “By exempting gas and diesel but not allowing the same exemption for propane, the law actually encourages the increased use of gas and diesel – this is environmental nonsense.”

Just moments ago, we heard my friend from Hamilton Centre say the exact same thing, which is that, because of this, people are beginning to use diesel. The government has established the carbon tax, but it is actually giving an exemption to a dirtier fuel. We have an option here. The statement continues:

St-Pierre said that CPA members are also hearing from their customers in the agriculture sector about the significant added cost due to the federal carbon tax. According to an estimate provided by the Parliamentary Budget Officer last December, over the next five years about $235 million will be collected from farmers for using natural gas and propane.

I will note that statistic. I was speaking to Dan about this. On behalf of the farmers in our area, he sent a cheque for over $1 million for just a few months for carbon tax collection. That $1 million that could have been used for so many other things, perhaps new technology, workers or new things on farms, but instead, that money is paid to the government.

We are talking about $235 million. I have heard people say that the government is going to lose $235 million. To me, the government should not be taking that $235 million in the first place, so it would not be losing revenue. This is revenue it should not be taking, so we have to look at this as not being a loss of revenue for the government.

The government had no business taking the $235 million in the first place because, at the end of the day, who pays for it? It is going to be the farmers. After the farmers, who pays for it? It is going to be people sitting at their tables, eating their cornflakes or their eggs from the local chicken farm. These are the people who, at the end of the day, are going to be impacted.

Yes, this bill is good for farmers, but it is also good for Canadian consumers who want to support the agricultural industry in Canada, especially that in Elgin—Middlesex—London, which is so important to me.

We have talked about inflation. In the last few weeks, inflation has been really key. We have talked about how much the price of wood and lumber have gone up. Housing is a big issue. In my riding of Elgin—Middlesex—London, there has been a 46% increase since last April in the cost of a two-storey home. Inflation is an issue, and the government is adding more costs to our goods.

If we talk about poverty reduction strategies, we need to see what we are doing that is creating more barriers. I look at not giving this exemption as just another barrier to reducing the high cost of our goods right now. Farmers know that, when they are paying all this money, it affects their bottom line.

I am so fortunate to work with Scott at the Grain Farmers of Ontario in my area. He is the zone manager there. I thank Scott, who always works with me. The Grain Farmers of Ontario is the province's largest commodity organization, representing over 28,000 barley, corn, oats, soybean and wheat farmers, and it has been very supportive of Bill C-206, an act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act regarding qualifying farming fuel.

The Grain Farmers of Ontario is supporting this bill because of its exemption of the carbon tax for on-farm fuel and calls on all MPs to consider the tax on grain drying and its impact on the agriculture system in Canada. It is quite simple. The government should not be making money off a tax that negatively impacts a farmer's ability to market viable grain. The carbon tax does not make that happen.

Brendan Byrne was the chair of the Grain Farmers of Ontario on February 22, 2021. There are a lot of AGMs going on, so that may not be his position now.

As we have always indicated, farmers have been doing great work in our communities. They are the stewards of our land. I think of some of the great projects that have been done in the back of farmers' fields with wetlands conservation. Those settlements are being taken back.

I love farmers, so I am very supportive of Bill C-206, and I thank the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South for bringing this bill forward.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have had many occasions to rise with privilege to share a bit about my own family history. I have spoken a lot about my father and the African Canadian diaspora, but I have not had the privilege of speaking about my mother's side of the family, a family that settled not far from here, about an hour from here in the South Mountain area. It is a place I have fond memories of, stories of my grandfather with a grade-six education being told by his father that the world and that road ahead is as long as he can make it.

My grandfather, Nelson Scharf, in fact had a cheese factory in Russell and Haliburton. It was a connection we had to the supply chain and the agricultural sector here. My grandmother, Doris Forward, had a family farm in Winchester. My cousin, Tom Forward, is still on the land and works within the dairy sector today.

I think about those early memories of visiting those farms, visiting the cheese factory, being up close as a child and seeing these hard-working people, folks who often do not get enough credit for the number of hours they work and for what they provide this country.

I rise today with the honour, on our 60-year anniversary as New Democrats, of being from the founding party of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which aimed to alleviate the suffering that workers and farmers felt and endured under capitalism. We are, in fact, the only party that was founded by farmers, so it is an honour and a privilege to be here today with that family background and that party background in support of this bill.

I want to take a moment and thank the hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South, a gentleman whom I have gotten to know in my committee work and somebody who I know has brought with him the good intentions of supporting the constituents within his riding.

For those who are tuning in and trying to get a sense of what this is all about, this bill, Bill C-206, seeks to amend the definition of “qualifying farming fuel” in the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to include natural gas and propane. Of course, this issue is complex. I will not pretend to be an expert, and there is certainly a lot of room for improvement at the committee stage, but this legislation stems from an unseasonably wet autumn in 2019, which was called “the harvest from hell”, when grain farmers were using propane and natural gas heaters to dry their grain. Without these grain dryers, grain rots and becomes worthless as food or as a cash crop contributing to our GDP.

There is currently no viable alternative to the use of propane or natural gas for the operation of these dryers, and because propane and natural gas are currently not covered under the act qualifying for farm fuels, grain farmers are forced into a situation of contributing more CO2 into the atmosphere as a result of carbon taxes on the cleaner fuels. The Grain Growers of Canada has confirmed, as of February of last year, that many of them have turned to higher-CO2-emitting diesel fuel, which is listed, ironically, as qualifying farm fuel in the act, for grain dryers to avoid the higher-taxed propane or natural gas heaters.

As our very learned critic for agriculture, the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, has stated, ultimately what we want is high-CO2-emitting industries to be contributing less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and if we penalize the agricultural sector with a higher price for choosing a cleaner fuel option, we are running entirely counter to our ultimate objective of combatting climate change by reducing GHG emissions. Our critic for agriculture, the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, states quite rightly that farmers are not only well aware of what the effects of climate change will be, but they are also one of our greatest tools for fighting climate change.

When we are looking at this bill, I think we have heard this false dichotomy between Liberals and Conservatives about carbon taxes being the defining feature of climate change. The Liberals would suggest this is a market solution and Conservatives would suggest this is yet another tax. As New Democrats, we recognize that reducing greenhouse gas emissions ought to be our objective, and we do not feel that providing this in this particular way meets that objective. While the intent of the bill is sound, making it easier and more affordable for farmers to burn cleaner fuel should be a no-brainer, and using no fuels whatsoever or existing clean technologies is just not a viable option.

I think of my family who are still in this sector. My cousins, the Weagants, sold farm equipment throughout Ontario. I also think about the hard-working farmers in my city. I am a very proud MP representing Hamilton Centre, and many people do not know that while we have close to 600,000 people, the geography of our city encapsulates a very large portion of rural areas in the greenbelt and into some of the tender fruits land.

We are here today hoping to see a better outcome on this particular issue, to ensure that we are not adding to the complexities of the food supply chain and that we are cutting through the noise into a bit of a more intelligent argument about, again, a party founded by the CCF and about supporting our farm workers. Those who are out there across Ontario, Quebec and, indeed, across the country know that the New Democratic Party was founded on those principles.

The Regina Manifesto, right there in our founding documents, says, “The security of tenure for the farmer upon his farm which is imperilled by the present disastrous situation of the whole industry, together with adequate social insurance, ought to be guaranteed under equitable conditions.” It is right there, in the foundation of the CCF, which, 60 years later, would become the NDP of today.

I hold that position, and I support our agricultural sector. I know that farmers are on the front lines of climate change, and I know that they will play a key role in our food security and our ability to adequately adapt to the changing climate, which will have a direct impact first on them, and of course, in the spirit of the hard-working people of my own family, those who continue to this day to work the land and to acknowledge our precious connection to the land, the food that we have and the food supply chains.

In closing, I would like to thank the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford who, on the technical aspects of this, has been absolutely incredible for me and our caucus to help us better understand the nuances, because we want to see a just recovery. We want to see a just transition for workers. We acknowledge that farmers are indeed some of the hardest-working people, and that includes the migrant workers who work alongside them in our fields.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the members of the House for allowing me to rise with the deep privilege that I have in the waning days of this Parliament to be able to share a little about myself, my family and our ongoing support for workers as New Democrats.