Bill C-234

An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act

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

Carbon Tax

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. The Liberals have known for a while now that their carbon tax is a scam, but they refuse to give it up. Their latest idea is to rename it, telling Canadians that it is a good thing that they raise the tax again on April 1.

The Liberals keep ignoring what Canadians have been telling them for years, and they are still offside with their coalition partners in the NDP, who voted with Conservatives to at least give our farmers some relief from the carbon tax cash grab. Instead of reducing costs for the farmers and for the people buying their food by passing Bill C-234, the government would rather work to prevent this tax relief from happening.

There is no reason to think the Liberals are interested in fixing what they have broken. If they get their way, their carbon tax will be higher and higher year after year, even though the minister admitted he is not measuring whether it is reducing emissions. Conservatives stand ready to stop this nonsense. Canadians can count on us to axe the tax and to bring the much needed relief they deserve.

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Madam Speaker, although I really appreciate this prairie battle back and forth between colleagues, I also enjoy the opportunity to rise and speak to this very important issue as we go through the agriculture committee's 10th report.

I know everyone will be delighted to hear that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Regina—Lewvan, so members will get to hear more of what he has to say. I hope all members stick around to hear his insights on this topic.

When speaking of food inflation, this is an issue that people face right across the country. The cost of food is up; it is actually at 40-year highs and up 10% year over year. This has been a very sharp, dramatic increase in recent years. People are really noticing it at the grocery store. People are struggling to afford healthy meals for their families.

Moreover, as we look to the future, Canada's Food Price Report is predicting a 5% to 7% increase on the cost of food even further. We are already at 40-year highs. We have already seen a 10% increase year over year, and now the report predicts another 5% to 7% increase in the cost of food. The most substantial of these increases will be for some very regular items, like vegetables, dairy and meat products, that Canadians look to as staples of their diets.

To put this in perspective, an average family of four would spend $16,288 per year on food in Canada. I know that is a sticker shock to a lot of people, but that is the reality people are facing. Unfortunately, we have noticed food bank usage is up.

In my riding, and I have spoken about this on the floor previously, I had a recent interaction with folks in Ignace who run the food bank there. It is a small community in my riding. It is shocking to them how many people are turning to the food bank, people who they never thought would have to turn to a food bank. One thing that was mentioned to me was the most heartbreaking moment in the day is when someone goes to the food bank and realizes there is actually nothing left. The food bank is literally running out of food in Ignace because of how expensive groceries have become for people.

That is not rural community but a small urban community that is isolated in northern Ontario. It is something that we are really unaccustomed to in the region. Of course, it is not just the costs; people are cutting back on their diets. We have heard stories of mothers watering down their kids' milk and cutting back on healthy food just to try to make ends meet. All around, it is a real affordability crisis when we talk about food inflation.

With this report, the committee has brought forward some suggestions. I would like to add a few more and to talk about some of the very real issues we are facing as a country. Food inflation is going up, and that is a direct result of a lot of the Liberal government's actions. An inflationary deficit is one of them. The Prime Minister has added more debt than all previous prime ministers before him combined. There is currently no plan to balance the budget.

What does that mean? It drives up their debt, which drives up inflation, and Canadians pay more on everything at the pump and at the grocery store. That is something we see as a major issue. The federal debt is actually projected to reach $1.2 trillion. That would represent nearly $81,000 per Canadian household. Each household would have to pay $81,000 in order to pay off that debt.

It is clear that we must balance the budget, but the government must bring back some fiscal prudence to ensure that we can balance the budget, lower the deficit and end the inflationary deficit driving up the cost of living for Canadians.

That is one suggestion I would like to put forward and something that our Conservative Party and our leader, the member for Carleton, have been advocating for a number of years now. It is a great suggestion.

Another one that I am sure, Madam Speaker, you will be well aware of, is that we are calling on the government to pass Bill C-234, which would exempt farmers from the carbon tax.

Northwestern Ontario is not the largest agricultural region in the country by any means, but there are a number of local farmers and producers in the area, specifically in Dryden and the Oxdrift area where the Cloverbelt Country producers provide locally grown vegetables and beef products. This is an important issue locally in northwestern Ontario and, really, right across the country as, of course, it is not just the farmers who have to pay it, but everyone who has to pay this tax as it gets passed on to the price of food.

In fact, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has estimated that farmers paid almost $14,000 in carbon tax in the first year it was imposed. The independent Parliamentary Budget Officer has confirmed that an increase in carbon taxes to $170 a tonne, which the government would sure like to do, would cumulatively cost farmers over $1 billion by 2030. That is a staggering number. Farmers are already struggling and the price of food is already getting out of control. I could not imagine how farmers would be able to operate and how people would be able to afford food with further increases.

To make it worse, the government actually introduced a second carbon tax, the clean fuel regulations, that would cost the average household an extra $573 per year. That is without any rebate. Now, we often hear the government touting its carbon tax rebate but this portion of it, the second carbon tax, comes with absolutely no rebate whatsoever.

Conservatives on the agricultural committee have brought forward some suggestions. I am not a member of that committee, but we have some great members who are representing us well in that regard. The Conservatives on that committee are suggesting that the government remove the carbon tax that is applied to all of the food inputs, not including farm fuels. That is what we want to achieve through Bill C-234. We are also calling on the government to complete a comprehensive study on the economic impact of the carbon tax and clean fuel regulations and how both of those affect the cost of food production, the price of food and the entire food supply chain as a whole.

Above all, we must pass Bill C-234 in its original form. This is a very important bill brought forward by our colleague and something that is going to make a world of difference, not just for farmers, but everyone who has to buy food, which is everyone in Canada, of course. It is such an essential item. With the cost of living spiralling out of control, the very least we can do is to axe this carbon tax on farmers and families. We obviously, as the Conservative Party, are going to axe the tax completely and get rid of it for good but, in the meantime, we are hoping that the governing NDP-Liberal coalition can meet us halfway, realize that people are struggling and work to pass Bill C-234 as quickly as possible.

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

Madam Speaker, the short answer is, “Yes.” I was here when the original Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act was brought into force. I think it was in 2018. The reason I support Bill C-234 is that when the Liberals originally authored their bill, they put exemptions in the parent act that listed qualifying farm fuels, qualifying farm machinery and qualifying farming activity. When I look at the language that is in Bill C-234, looking at the heating and cooling of barns and greenhouses and also at fuels used for drying grain, I think those are legitimate farming activities that are in line and in spirit with the original act.

I can conclude and say very publicly here in this House that, absolutely, New Democrats will keep our vote consistent with the third reading vote that we gave, along with the Green Party, along with the Bloc Québécois and along with the Conservatives. We are choosing to reject the Senate amendments to Bill C-234.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments from my colleague, with whom I sit on the agriculture committee. Obviously, in this report, there was an examination of some of the input costs that have caused food prices to rise.

My question for my hon. colleague is this. On our opposition day motion to report Bill C-234 back to the Senate unamended, will he be voting with us as Conservatives to make sure that farmers get help in decreasing the inputs when it comes to Bill C-234?

Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources]

Madam Speaker, it has been interesting to listen to the debate thus far. To begin, I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding when we are talking about affordability and carbon pricing. I am really wondering what the members opposite are concerned about when talking about affordability.

There was a study that came out of the University of Calgary from an economist. It talked about what would happen if we cancelled the carbon price tomorrow and the rebate that goes along with it. It is not just the carbon price. There is also a rebate cheque that gets sent to people where there is a federal backstop. The economist from the University of Calgary found that, if that were cancelled tomorrow, the people who would benefit the most would be the people who earn over $250,000.

I can only guess, from the fervour that I hear from the other side of the House, that the people they are concerned about, who they really want to make sure have no affordability issues, are the people who earn over $250,000. This study from this economist found that those are the people who would benefit the most from this big push we are hearing of every day to end carbon pricing and the rebates that get sent to people who are paying the carbon price in federal backstop provinces. I would like to have some clarity on that point because it seems perplexing to me.

Today, we are talking about Bill C-234. It is about farming. Farmers feed us. They are such an important part of our community and our country. Agriculture is a cornerstone of rural communities right across our country. When we are talking about this, I think we need to start with that point and recognize the importance of farmers in our country.

When we are talking about this bill, we are actually talking about protecting farming and agriculture right across our country. We are seeing natural disasters, like the atmospheric rivers and the droughts. There is a drought right now that we are hearing about in Alberta, and people are talking about having to reduce their water use. We are talking about wildfires. We saw the atmospheric river that happened in the interior of B.C. That impacted farms. Those were farms that got washed out.

When we are talking about fighting climate change and about taking action on this really important issue, it is not something that is nice to have, but it is essential. We need to do it for our own survival, and we need to do it to support farmers. They are the ones who are bearing the brunt every day, and they are seeing the impacts of natural disasters caused by climate change.

That is why we need to continue to take action. It is also why it is very shortsighted. It is not going to help affordability. It is not going to help our farmers to not take action on climate change. I believe it is really important, when we are looking at this bill and when we are talking about these issues, that we take into account those parts. The last thing I will say on affordability when talking about farming is that, when our farms are impacted by natural disasters, the price of food goes up. That is what we saw. In fact, we saw that with the price of iceberg lettuce when it shot up when natural disasters were happening in California. We see it time and time again.

One of the things we can do best, as a country, if we want to make sure we are protecting farms, our sources of food, while dealing with affordability issues, is to continue to fight climate change and protect our communities from natural disasters.

Let me talk about Bill C-234. The first part of the bill would be redundant because the agricultural sector already receives significant relief compared to other sectors of the economy under the carbon pollution pricing system. In fact, the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act already provides upfront relief from the fuel charge to farmers for gasoline and diesel used in eligible farming machinery, such as farm trucks and tractors. It also relieves 80% of the fuel charge from natural gas and propane used to heat an eligible greenhouse.

There are now refundable tax credits in place, which return a portion of the fuel charge proceeds to farm businesses operating in the backstop provinces covered by the federal fuel charge. I do not think, in this conversation that we are having, we talk enough about those parts. People would think they do not exist. Let us just remind Canadians that, when we are talking about this bill, there is already relief built into the system to support farming and agriculture.

On the refundable tax credit, the total amount to be returned to farmers is generally equal to the estimated fuel charge proceeds from farm use of propane and natural gas for heating and drying activities. This aims to ensure that all the proceeds collected from this farming activity are returned to farmers in the provinces that are backstop provinces.

When I talk about backstop provinces, what provinces am I talking about? The provinces are Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Farmers in those provinces are the ones I have been talking about.

Quebec is not covered by the federal backstop. Quebec had a price on carbon pollution before the federal one, so it was actually ahead. The farmers in Quebec, for example, do not pay the federal fuel charge, so they also do not receive the farmers tax credit.

The refundable tax credit for farmers does not undermine the effectiveness of pollution pricing because it does not return fuel charged proceeds according to a farm's actual natural gas or propane use. What it does is put a price on pollution and then it returns a portion of the proceeds to farmers to help farmers transition to ways to lower carbon emissions in farming.

By providing support to farmers, we are also maintaining the price signal to reduce emissions. In contrast, Bill C-234 would completely remove the price signal needed for carbon pricing to work by directly relieving the fuel charges on natural gas and propane used in eligible farming activities in addition to the existing relief for gasoline and diesel that already exists.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to stand in this place and to address a very important issue. That issue comes down to affordability. It comes down to the well-being of Canadians from coast to coast, to those who live in rural areas, in urban areas, in my province of Alberta and in Atlantic Canada.

The debate tonight has to do with being able to buy the very basics of life, including fuel for a person's vehicle so that they can drive to work or take their kids to sport practice. It is a conversation about being able to put food on the table, whether that is fruits, vegetables, grain or dairy. Whatever a family chooses to consume, they should be able to afford those choices.

Furthermore, Bill C-234 is about being able to heat one's home. I do not know about others, but where I live in Alberta, we can get temperatures down to -53°C with the wind chill. I cannot imagine trying to heat my home with a heat pump, as the Liberals would like to suggest is possible, nor can I imagine relying on wind or solar as my sole source of electricity, because we had a proof point, just a few weeks ago, that it just does not work.

Instead, what people rely on to heat their homes in my part of the country is largely natural gas. The Liberal government has attached something called a carbon tax to those very necessities of life, whether it is the food we eat, the fuel that we put in our vehicles or the energy that heats our homes. The carbon tax is punitive in nature, and it is driving up the cost that Canadians have to pay just to survive.

Bill C-234, which we are discussing here today, has to do with taking the carbon tax off the fuel that farmers use for the very necessities of the jobs they do. Imagine putting all of one's time and energy and all of one's labour into producing food for the nation of Canada and for the entire world. Imagine doing that, and then imagine having a government in power that, rather than expressing gratitude toward them, actually punishes them. That is exactly what the Liberals have done for the last eight years.

The carbon tax is extremely punitive in nature. It goes after those individuals working hard to produce food. It does that by applying this tax to the very necessities of production. Whether it is using natural gas to heat a barn in order to keep chickens alive or dairy cattle alive, or whether it is using propane to be able to dry grain, let us say, those are things farmers do on a day to day basis. Those things are necessary to produce food for Canadians and for the world. Those things are required to keep us, as humanity, alive and to drive our economy forward. Rather than celebrating the incredible contribution that farmers are making, the Liberal government has chosen to go after them and to be extremely punitive.

On this side of the House, members got together and came up with an idea. That idea is brilliant. It is supported by producers all across the country. That idea is to remove the carbon tax from fuel, from natural gas and from propane so that farmers can produce food at less expense.

Here is what happens when farmers are empowered to produce food with little expense attached to it. Those savings get passed on to Canadians. Then, when Canadians go to grocery stores and buy food for their families, they are able to pay a little less. However, when the government attaches that tax, it actually drives up the cost of food, so Canadians then have to spend more.

What will happen when Canadians have to spend more? Headlines across this country will show us exactly what will happen. Families are struggling. Millions are lining up at food banks every single month across this country. In my riding, in Lethbridge, Alberta, the food bank use has doubled under the Liberal government. It has doubled.

It is not just folks who maybe do not have homes or who live in low-income housing. It is folks who have full-time jobs and live in middle-class neighbourhoods. It is seniors who rely on fixed incomes, who have worked incredibly hard for 65, 75, maybe 80 years of their lives. It is the students studying at Lethbridge College or the University of Lethbridge who are investing in their education and, because of the government, cannot afford to make ends meet, so they have to go to the food bank. It is the veterans who fought for this country, the country that we love. It is the men and women who sacrificed a great deal, and are now not supported by the government, who are lining up at the food bank.

That is a problem that was created under the watch of the Liberal government, but it did not have to be that way. The government has created policy after policy that has punished Canadians and held them back from achieving greatness, from being able to bring in income and stretch it to cover their costs of life. It is the government that has prevented people from being able to do that.

On this side of the House, there is a concerted effort to give Canadians control of their lives back. There is a concerted effort to make sure they can afford the very necessities they require. Of course, top of mind is to axe the tax, and that is exactly what Bill C-234 would do. Bill C-234 is all about getting rid of this punitive tax, taking it off of farmers and allowing all Canadians to benefit because, when farmers benefit, so do the people who go to the grocery store to buy food. That is what this bill is about.

Here is what the government did. This bill was discussed in this place and then went to the Senate, which started out with some good common-sense thinking. At first, it seemed that the majority in the Senate was going to support this bill because it just makes sense, but then the Liberal government, in particular, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Environment, caught wind of this. What did they do? They got on the phone, asked for meetings and applied pressure. They applied pressure to the senators, who are supposedly independent, and eventually those senators caved. The bill ended up being gutted to the point of being meaningless, and that is what we are now debating in this place.

Canadians deserve better. For starters, they deserve better behaviour from the government, and second, they deserve better policy. They deserve policy that would allow them to work hard for a paycheque, bring that money home and be able to cover the cost of things they need to purchase, whether it is groceries, fuel for their vehicles or their heating bills. Canadians need to be empowered to cover those expenses, and a big part of that is axing the tax.

In my riding, a producer was willing to share his natural gas bill with me. He has a few different parts to his farming operation, but just for one of them, the beef operation, he spends $62,000 a year on the carbon tax. He was willing to share some his bills with me, which I reviewed, and month after month the carbon tax is more than the amount he spent on the actual natural gas used. That is crazy. It is ludicrous that a farmer would have to spend more on the tax than the product itself.

What also needs to be driven home is that we have to remember that all Canadians, including farmers, are not just paying the carbon tax, but the tax on top of it. They are paying a government tax and a provincial tax on top of the carbon tax. It is the greatest scheme for the government to make money, but it is on the backs of Canadians, and the government should be ashamed of itself.

Conservatives are going to work hard. We are going to fight for Canadians. We are going to make sure their paycheques stay powerful. We are going to axe the tax.

[Lianne Rood, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

My apologies, Madam Speaker.

I will continue with the exchange.

[The hon. minister]: I had conversations with five or six senators, yes.

[The hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa]: ...five or six senators. What are their names?

[The hon. minister]: I don't have the names with me.

[The hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa]: Can you table those?

[The hon. minister]: I'm sure we can make those available.

[The hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa]: Okay, thank you.

Theenvironment minister did table with the committee three names of senators he spoke with, but only three names. However, the minister said that he spoke with six senators, so it begs the question who those other three senators are that the minister spoke with. This is just another example of a Liberal cabinet minister politically interfering when they want to get their own way.

No matter what the Liberals say about the senators they have appointed, it proves they are not independent. On this side of the House, we know that nothing about this bill needs to be reconsidered and that this bill must be sent back to the Senate in its original form.

No matter what happens with this bill right now, if Conservatives form government, Canadians can rest assured that we would axe the carbon tax for everyone. Farmers would have this reprieve because we know this carbon tax does nothing to reduce emissions; it only harms Canadians' ability to afford the nutritious foods they need to feed their families and makes everything more expensive.

If the NDP-Liberals refuse to support Bill C-234 in its original form, they would send a very clear message to farmers in particular. The message they would send is that they do not care about how their carbon tax negatively affects Canadians and contributes to rising food costs. They would show, sadly, how out of touch they are with Canadian farmers.

Being involved in the business of fresh produce and farming, I have first-hand knowledge of how the carbon tax increases the costs and makes the cost of food go up. I am passionate about farming to my core; I am sure everyone can see that. Agriculture is the backbone of the area where I grew up and is the backbone of the communities that I have the honour and privilege of representing here in this place. There are lots of different kinds of farming in my area, including grain farming, poultry farming, which includes turkey and chicken, as well as greenhouse farming and vegetable growing. There is a cost associated with that to the farmers who grow grain and who raise the poultry for market, and greenhouse growers as well are especially affected by the carbon tax.

Many farmers in my area have to use propane or natural gas to heat their barns or to heat their greenhouses, and it might be a surprise, but vegetable farmers heat their barns too while they are storing things. Not only that, they have to heat barns in order to dry onions enough to store them. One thing they all have in common is that, on their most recent gas bill, the carbon tax charge was higher than the actual gas charge. That is outrageous.

A greenhouse grower in Ontario recently told me about the devastating impact the carbon tax would have on their greenhouse operation. They told me the average farmer who grows in greenhouses has anywhere from 50 acres to 100 acres. They did the calculation of the carbon tax they pay now and calculated what the NDP-Liberal government's quadrupling of the carbon tax would do.

If the carbon tax quadruples, they would pay $50,000 per acre in carbon tax alone. That is $50,000, so a 50-acre farm would pay $2.5 million in carbon tax and a 100-acre farm would pay $5 million in carbon tax. They would have no choice but to pass those costs on to consumers. Common sense tells us Canadian families would pay more at the store. When the carbon tax rises so does the cost of production for farmers and producers. If it costs the farmer more to grow the food and the trucker more to ship the food, it would cost Canadian families more to buy the food.

Farmers are affected by the uncertainties of weather, and this is not new. Farmers have always been affected by weather. Every year, the climate changes. It is now winter in much of Canada, but soon, it is going to spring. Then it is going to be summer, and then it is going to be fall, and then it is going to be winter again. The uncertainty of the weather means sometimes farmers have to harvest their crops before they are dry.

For the last few decades, our farmers have had the option of using grain dryers. Farmers can take a crop off when it is still a little wet, they can bring it to the right moisture content in a propane or natural gas-fired grain dryer. It will dry it so the moisture content comes down. However, right now, there is no alternative to natural gas or propane grain dryers.

I want to remind my colleagues across the way that we live in Canada, and we experience wide ranges of temperatures. I know most of the Liberals are from Toronto and they do not get out to other parts of Canada, but it does regularly get to be -40° or colder.

Many chicken farmers have to heat their poultry barns throughout much of the year with propane or natural gas, because it is a humane necessity to keep birds alive.

Farmer Brian, a large chicken farmer in my riding, wrote to me and gave me his natural gas bills for one of his many chicken barns. For a period of 12 months in 2023, he paid almost $16,000 in carbon tax alone, just to heat one barn. That is just one barn, and the carbon tax is going to quadruple.

The carbon tax is going to rise again on April 1. The NDP-Liberals want to quadruple the tax. That is going to increase the cost of food. The Parliamentary Budget Officer made it clear that this bill would save Canadian farmers $1 billion by 2030, which would reduce the cost of food for Canadian families that are currently struggling to afford groceries.

The profit margins for most Canadian producers are very narrow, and there is very little room for additional input costs. For Canadian farmers, the NDP-Liberal carbon tax is an input cost on their production. Most producers are price takers, not price setters. That means that farmers have no way of recovering what they pay in the NDP-Liberal carbon tax from the next stage of the supply chain.

To be clear, the NDP-Liberal carbon tax takes from most Canadian farming families' profits, which reflects on the Canadian families' standard of living. I have said it before, it is not rocket science. If it costs farmers to grow food and truckers more to ship food, it is going to cost Canadian families more to buy food.

The existing carbon tax exemption for farmers' use of gasoline and other fuels raises another question related to science and math. The science says that natural gas and propane are the least-emitting sources available for heat.

Will the NDP-Liberals send this bill back to the Senate unamended, in its original form and let us get this bill passed for Canadian farmers so that they could have this tax relief from the carbon tax?

[Lianne Rood, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Madam Speaker, we are here tonight debating Bill C-234 again. Why are we? It is because the Liberal-appointed senators voted to gut the bill from its original form to prevent it from passing. The panicking Liberals are resorting to every trick in the book, trying desperately to prevent farmers from getting a carbon tax carve-out for drying grain, heating barns and other farm operations. This is ahead of the Prime Minister's plan to increase the carbon tax on April 1 by 23% as part of the NDP-Liberal plan to quadruple the carbon tax.

Farmers in my riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex and from across this great country made their voices known to senators loud and clear by writing, calling and emailing their offices. They have done so with MPs as well over the course of the last two years that we have been seeing this important bill make its way through the parliamentary process.

Despite the farmers' best efforts to voice their concerns and let senators know that they need to pass the bill in its original form in order to bring the much-needed financial relief to their cost of growing food, and despite the testimony that was heard from industry about how the carbon tax will eventually price most farmers out of business while increasing the cost food for Canadians, Liberal senators instead gutted the bill and sent it back to this place for reconsideration.

This begs the question “Why?”. What possibly could have influenced Liberal senators to gut the bill when the overwhelming evidence shows that if the bill is not passed, the cost of production for farmers will keep rising and thus will continue to drive up the cost of food for Canadians?

The Liberals have denied trying to influence their so-called independent senators; however, as it turns out, the environment minister has actually admitted to calling senators and asking them to keep the carbon tax on. I will read into the record an exchange the environment minister had on December 14, 2023, at the environment committee:

Mr. Dan Mazier: Did you call any senators to discuss Bill C-234?

Hon. [Minister]: Can you repeat the question, please?

Mr. Dan Mazier: Did you call any senators to discuss Bill C-234?

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would note that Canada's emissions have dropped by a bigger percentage than those of any other G7 country since 2019.

It is true that one amendment would remove the relief associated with heating or cooling a building or similar structure used for raising or housing livestock or growing crops, but the relief for grain drying would remain, as would amendments to expand qualifying farm fuels to include natural gas and propane. The government does not believe that making it free to pollute is the right way to proceed.

We are taking action where it makes a real, positive difference in supporting farmers to make cleaner choices. As part of our strengthened climate plan and the 2030 emissions reduction plan, the Government of Canada has committed over $1.5 billion to accelerate the agricultural sector's progress on reducing emissions, while remaining a global leader in sustainable agriculture. This includes almost $500 million for the agricultural clean technology program to create an enabling environment for the development and adoption of clean technology that will help drive the changes required to achieve a low-carbon economy and promote sustainable growth in Canada's agriculture and agri-food sector. This program is helping Canadians in the agricultural sector to innovate and to adopt clean technologies.

Farmers are taking action. They have been leading the adoption of climate-friendly practices like precision agriculture technology and low-till techniques that can help reduce emissions and save them both time and money. I have seen it in my riding with local companies; Terramera, for example, has been partnering with Microsoft to share information on precision agriculture at landscape scale. I have seen the sustainable farming practices being implemented locally that are making a big difference on climate change and on water use. The government is continuing to take action to support them.

Budget 2022, for example, provided $150 million for a resilient agricultural landscape program, cost-shared with provinces and territories, to support carbon sequestration and adaptation and to address other environmental co-benefits. It also provided $100 million to the federal granting councils to support post-secondary research in developing technologies and crop varieties that will allow for net-zero emission agriculture, and it provided $469 million to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to expand the agricultural climate solutions program's on-farm climate action fund.

Budget 2022 also renewed the Canadian agricultural partnership, which delivers a range of support programs for farmers and agriculture, including federal-only programs and programs developed in partnership with provincial and territorial governments. Each year, these programs provide about $600 million to support agricultural innovation, sustainability, competitiveness and market development. The Canadian agricultural partnership also includes a comprehensive suite of business risk management programs to help Canadian farmers cope with volatile markets and disaster situations, delivering approximately $2.3 billion of support, on average, per year. These are the right ways to help farmers increase production while addressing climate change that threatens production.

Our pollution pricing system is simply about recognizing that pollution has a cost, and about encouraging cleaner growth and a more sustainable future. The federal government does not keep any direct proceeds from pollution pricing under this system. Canada's approach to pollution pricing is not only one of the best ways to fight climate change; it also puts more money back into the pockets of Canadians. The direct proceeds from the federal pollution price are returned in the jurisdiction from which they were collected, to help with cost of living challenges while keeping the incentive to pollute less.

As 2024 kicks off, the Government of Canada reiterates its commitment to pollution pricing and its crucial role in meeting targets to cut emissions to 40% below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Estimates show that pollution pricing will contribute about a third of the total reductions in emissions that will occur between now and 2030. Putting a price on pollution and returning the bulk of the proceeds through rebates provides support not just for farmers but also for consumers and businesses, while also maintaining an incentive to reduce emissions.

Canada has been a world leader in fighting climate change through pollution pricing, and we should not do anything that would undermine this achievement, as Bill C-234 would for the reasons I have set out today. I am thankful for the opportunity to make the government's position on this piece of legislation clear.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to resume debate on this private member's bill, Bill C-234, pursuant to the proposed amendments to the bill from the Senate.

Canada has the best farmers and food processors in the world. We are a global leader in agricultural production, and the sector is of great importance to our economy, to trade and to jobs. I know that in my riding of West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, we have some of the best small-scale farms in the country. The government understands that farmers are essential to our communities and to Canada's economy, and that is why it agrees with the intent of Bill C-234.

Supporting our farmers is, of course, of great importance. However, the bill is not appropriately structured to achieve this objective. It is important to deliver support for farmers that is effective in helping them ramp up production without undermining important goals like addressing climate change, which itself poses a severe threat to agricultural production.

Putting a price on pollution is a cornerstone of Canada's climate plan. It is widely recognized as the most efficient means to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to more intense wildfires, droughts and floods, while putting money back in people's pockets and driving investment in cleaner alternatives. In B.C., of course, there has been a price on pollution for more than 15 years; it remains in place today. It is instead of the federal system, which applies only in provinces that do not bring in their own carbon pricing system.

Farmers are on the front lines of climate change, facing ever-increasing risks of natural disasters to their operations. Pollution pricing was designed to take into account the unique needs of farmers. Of course I have seen it first hand with a number of the farms in my riding, where historic droughts and water restrictions actually brought in a state of emergency that restricted access to water for some of these farms. I have also seen in recent years the crushing impact of the heat dome fuelled by climate change.

That is why, for all provinces where the federal carbon price is in effect, Canada's agriculture is already receiving significant relief under the federal carbon pollution pricing system compared to other sectors. Through the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, the federal system exempts gasoline and diesel used in eligible farming machinery, as well as biological emissions, such that roughly 97% of on-farm emissions are not subject to a price on pollution.

Greenhouse operators also received upfront relief of 80% on the fuel charge on propane and marketable natural gas. Additionally, farmers in provinces where the federal system is in place can receive a refundable tax credit, which, overall, returns the estimated total fuel charge proceeds in these provinces related to farm use of natural gas and propane for heating and drying activities, to help farmers transition to lower-carbon ways of farming.

This year, farmers in rural areas will benefit from the doubling of the rural top-up for pollution price rebates, which will give households an extra 20% of the value of the rebates in backstop jurisdictions. Putting a price on pollution and returning the proceeds to farmers helps them transition to lower-carbon ways of farming by providing support to farmers while also maintaining a price signal to reduce emissions. These are the right ways to help farmers increase production while addressing climate change that threatens production.

Unfortunately, even as amended by the Senate, which did make some steps in the right direction, the bill does not reflect Canada's commitment to climate change or incentivize farmers to switch to less carbon-intensive solutions. It also risks weakening Canada's efforts to lower its greenhouse gas emissions. It is true that one amendment would remove—

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise tonight and pursue the discussion of a very complex piece of legislation. It did not start out being complex, when our colleague initially put it forward as Bill C-234, but I appreciate the opportunity to speak to it. Of course, this is the greenhouse gas pollution pricing act as it relates to on-farm use of fossil fuels. It has now been amended in the Senate to exempt one of the larger uses of fossil fuels on farms. Of course, farm communities are not pleased; however, I wanted to step back.

This piece that would now be exempted under the Senate amendments is the on-farm use of propane fuel for grain drying. In other words, activities that take place in buildings are now no longer exempt from the fossil fuel exemption that came through in the first version of Bill C-234. As the Green Party members and I voted for Bill C-234 in its first iteration, I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity, if I may, to explain why we voted that way and what I think we should do for a fundamental reconsideration of the way we price carbon on farms so that it has some intellectual and scientific coherence.

Let me first start with why we voted for Bill C-234 in its first iteration. I recall really clearly when carbon pricing came forward, which we favour, to be very clear. We think we have to monetize carbon. If we treat pollution as something free, nobody will pay attention to what it really costs society, what it really costs humanity to treat the atmosphere as if it were a large, free garbage dump for our pollution. That is clearly not acceptable. We moved forward, accepting that there would be, unfortunately, a patchwork, because some provinces had already moved forward.

British Columbia brought in Canada's first carbon tax, a well-constructed and logical revenue-neutral approach to carbon pricing. There have been changes, and some provinces brought in their own versions. What the current Liberal government brought forward was essentially a backstop; for those provinces that did not have their own systems, the federal government brought in a carbon price that would apply everywhere to try to equalize the pricing among all the different provinces and have a system that remained revenue-neutral.

British Columbia brought in the revenue-neutral carbon tax under the government of previous premier Gordon Campbell, who pretty much represented the right wing of B.C. politics. Nevertheless, it was a really well-designed carbon price. The revenue-neutral part of it was that, as British Columbians, we got tax cuts that were how we received what citizens now actually receive as a rebate check in those backstop provinces. This became a bit more complicated than it perhaps needed to be.

When the Liberals brought this in, they said they were not going to apply it on farms; farmers would not have to pay the carbon tax. At least, that was how it was communicated. When farmers realized that they were not paying a carbon tax on the diesel they put in their tractors or the farm equipment they use, but they were paying a big one on grain drying, they became quite concerned. That is the source of Bill C-234. We felt, in principle, that once the farming community has been told that carbon tax will not apply to them, one should stick to that.

It also happened that, because of the climate crisis, the need for grain drying increased. This is one of those things that may sound counterintuitive, of course, but we had what farmers in the Prairies referred to as “the harvest from hell” that winter. I am going to back up and say that I know it is not the first time we have ever had the need for grain drying. We have had wet harvests before. It was not a novelty, but it was particularly bad. They were still trying to get crops out of the fields when there was snow on them. Grain drying became much more intense, and the use of propane for grain drying actually increased. That is when farmers said, “Well, wait a minute. We were supposed to be exempt from carbon pricing.”

Before diving into what has happened to Bill C-234 since then, I want to step back and ask this: If we wanted to monetize carbon and, preferably, keep farmers who are essentially land stewards on board with the need to respond to the climate crisis, how would we do that? I would say that the reason farmers should be particularly on board with measures to reduce greenhouse gases and avoid an ever-worsening climate crisis is that, if there is one economic sector that is a big loser and at risk in a world of climate crisis, it is agriculture. In the Prairies now, there is a multi-year drought. Some of my friends who are farmers on the Prairies say not to call it a drought. They say to call it “aridification”, because it is just going to keep getting drier as a result of climate trends and global warming.

With respect to the impact on the cost of food, we talk about inflation in grocery prices, and a good chunk of that is the impact on certain agricultural products because of extreme climate events. Whether droughts or floods, extreme weather events wipe out certain kinds of food. The price of vanilla went sky-high because of the impact of storms hitting Madagascar, as but one example. Of course, grains all around the world started costing a lot more because of a combination of Putin declaring war on Ukraine and crop failures caused by extreme climatic events.

As someone who wants to see us all pull together, it was distressing that one component of Canadian society would be alienated from efforts to act on climate by what felt like and, I have to say, looked like a betrayal on a promise. This component is severely impacted by the climate crisis and, therefore, should be onside with doing something to keep it from becoming ever worse; at the same time, it is a part of our society that plays a big role in how carbon is sequestered. If the Liberals say they are not going to apply carbon taxes on farms, then farmers are surprised to be paying a walloping carbon tax, how did that happen? I am sorry to say this to my Liberal friends, but it is because the Liberals do not really understand a lot about farming; when they made the promise, they did not realize that fossil fuels used on farms were largely used in buildings to dry grain.

It is fine to exempt tractors and on-farm equipment, but here we come to the crux of what I wish we had done, which we could perhaps still do: We can enlist farmers as the creative land stewards they are, as farmers sequester carbon through their practices and on-farm activities, such as zero-tillage agriculture, getting rid of summer fallow, and making sure they are doing more perennial and fewer annual crops. Farmers are massively effective at sequestering carbon in soil, and guess what? We talk about planting forests as a way of sequestering carbon and carbon sinks in forests. Those things are real; that is true.

However, right now, and largely because of climate change, our grasslands are better at sequestering carbon than our forests are. Why? The soils hold an enormous quantity of carbon. Climate conditions causing forest fires wipe out the carbon we were sequestering in forests, releasing it by the millions of tonnes into the atmosphere. It is not just in the summer; every province in this country started having wildfires that were out of control in the spring, in May of last year, and all the way through late fall and some into the winter. When forests burn, we lose all the carbon.

Here is something interesting, and scientists are looking at this a lot: When grasslands burn, we do not lose all the carbon. Most of that carbon is stored well below the soil, in the root systems that do not burn. Therefore, if we are offsetting for greenhouse gas, I generally think we are better not to plant a tree but to plant a billionaire; I usually say that in jest, just to make sure everybody understands that. We are better off protecting the grasslands.

Where ecosystems exist with grasslands, it is better to sustain them and keep them robust, which means this: What if, instead of just having carbon pricing on the fuel they burn, we pay farmers for every tonne of carbon they sequester? What if we had an actual balance sheet on carbon pricing, thanking and rewarding farmers who have taken on board protecting ecological services, such as wetlands, protecting biodiversity and making sure they are restoring the health of soil, improving the profitability and the health of the food, and keeping carbon out of the atmosphere?

I say thanks to farmers.

The House resumed from January 29 consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-234, An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to start by moving the motion that I put on notice on Friday to immediately invite Minister Guilbeault to this committee to determine if there was a breach of our parliamentary privilege. Before my Liberal colleagues bemoan the fact that Conservatives raise issues they don't like, let me state that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Minister of Environment either misled this committee or is hiding the names of senators whom he personally lobbied to gut Bill C-234.

Regardless of your partisan stripe, it is incumbent on us as MPs to safeguard our privileges, which have been fought for and must be defended as part of our Westminster tradition. It is essential that we have proper functioning of this institution and that we be given timely access to and accurate information from ministers when requested by a committee.

As an aside, Bill C-234 is a critical piece of legislation that any member of Parliament who has farmers in their riding, such as the rural MP for Milton, should be supportive of, just as members from across party lines were, because it is an important piece of legislation not just for farmers but for all Canadians, to help alleviate the continually rising price of food.

The legislation would exempt grain farmers from paying the carbon tax on propane and natural gas to dry their grain, and livestock farmers from the same carbon tax to heat or cool their livestock barns. It would amount to $1 billion by 2030. That would mean immediate savings for Canadian producers and for buying food, as well as a meaningful impact for our farmers, who would be able to reinvest that money back into their operation to provide environmental outcomes for Canadians.

This legislation is supported by all national agriculture groups, and it made its way through Parliament, through the House of Commons, in a rather judicious manner for a private member's bill, with the support of members from the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois, the NDP, some Liberals and even the Green Party. They recognized that it is a good piece of legislation to fix a flaw in the fact that farmers simply cannot transition to a different fuel source when it comes to those specific activities. It is simply punishing farmers for something they have no choice but to do, and it is encouraging higher prices at the grocery store for Canadians.

Following the rather swift passage through the House of Commons, when it got to the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, there was clearly some political gamesmanship that began being played. There were a number of amendments intended to gut the bill there and to delay the bill. Thankfully, they were voted down by the larger chamber of sober second thought, the Senate, later on. However, over time, for unknown reasons, that vote count chipped away as senators procedurally brought forward the exact amendments over and over again to try to disrupt and destroy this legislation, which would save farmers $1 billion.

Those incremental vote losses ultimately led to changes, and they sent it back to the House of Commons. That has led to no-man's land, meaning that this legislation, without government support, may never get passed, because there is simply no precedent for it.

It has been an extreme frustration to Canadian farmers. It became political when this government decided that certain Canadians deserved a break on the carbon tax on their home heating oil at the same time as farmers were being denied what was a clear, good policy to prevent $1 billion leaving their pockets.

Specifically to the motion I'm moving now, when Minister Guilbeault appeared before this committee on December 14, he was asC-234ked by my Conservative colleague Dan Mazier if he had spoken to any senators about Bill . In response, the minister said, “I had conversations with five or six senators, yes.”

The reason we knew to ask this was that he had publicly declared previously that he had spoken to senators about this. In a CTV article from November 14, 2023, he was quoted as saying that he had had discussions with “half a dozen” senators in the past couple of weeks to express the federal government's opposition to the legislation.

A CBC article from November 28 of that year said, “The minister said he had spoken with about six senators to explain the government's position, but did not tell them how to vote.”

On three separate occasions, he has said “five or six senators”, including when he spoke before this very committee in this very room. It took 49 days from that appearance of the minister, who had promised to get back to my colleague with the names of the senators he had called up about Bill C-234, to our receiving them.

It took 49 days. It seems like an awfully long time to remember somewhere between, apparently, three and six names.

The thing is, you'd expect him to have come forward with those five or six names of the people he'd said previously in the media and to our committee he had spoken with. However, for some reason, there were only three names on that list. It seems awfully odd that he guessed up and then came back and realized, “Oh, I only talked to half of those senators.” Something seems amiss. From this, we can only conclude that he either provided false testimony when he appeared as a witness before this committee, or he provided false information when providing the names of the senators who lobbied to gut Bill C-234.

In either event, the minister misled this committee, and I believe we must invite him to appear immediately before the committee for one hour to sort out the discrepancy of the information that he provided and decide if it must be reported back to the House. Without the minister's appearance to answer questions, it is impossible for the committee to determine whether he showed contempt before this committee. On the face of it, it clearly appears that he did, which should trouble every member here, regardless of their political stripe.

Successive Speakers have clearly set out three conditions that must be demonstrated in order to arrive at a finding of contempt through misleading statements or information. First, the statement needs to be misleading. Second, the member making the statement has to know that it was incorrect when made. Third, and finally, it needs to be proven that the member intended to mislead the House by making the statement.

On the first point, it was clearly a misleading statement or a misleading written response. It was one of those two. There's no denying that. On the second point, if the minister intentionally misled the committee, he would have known that his statement was incorrect when he made it on December 14. At no time did he try to reconcile his written response with the testimony he provided to this committee. On the third point, we do not know if he intended to mislead the committee, so we must investigate. Only Minister Guilbeault, not his legion across the way, can provide any clarity on this issue.

We know he has faced considerable pressure to gut Bill C-234. He even put his own reputation on the line by stating, “As long as I’m the environment minister, there will be no more exemptions to carbon pricing”. This was, of course, in the aftermath of a decision to lift the carbon tax on home heating oil for 3% of Canadians.

He had the motive to do everything in his power to stop our Conservative-led bill, which was supported across partisan lines in the duly elected House of Commons, to exempt farmers from the carbon tax. There is no question, to me, that Minister Guilbeault has misled this committee. The question is whether he intended to do so.

While I know certain members across the way enjoy running, I implore them not to run away from this matter, because if they do, it will speak volumes to how deep the rot has gotten in this government.

It is time for an investigation, Mr. Chair. I encourage all of my colleagues of all political stripes to support the motion to bring the minister to clarify whether or not he misled this committee.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Dr. Lee. I hear you not supporting the amendments on Bill C-234 and the shrinking sunset time.

I'll shift gears a bit. There are those who are calling for more competition in the grocery retail sector. In fact, the Minister of Innovation is working the phones, supposedly, to make that happen. We've talked about the profits at the retail sector, and hear on average 3.7%, but that would only reduce a basket of groceries if they were zero, from $25 to $24. I'm wondering how a zero profit, if that was our goal, would attract or expand more foreign or smaller grocery retailers here in Canada.

With regard to the grocery code of conduct, would it not make more sense to have a market-based level playing field that is industry-led and uniform across Canada in existence? Would that not attract...? I'll cite the example of Australia, which has a voluntary code. It has attracted another retailer since the existence of the code. The U.K. has also attracted another retailer since a mandatory code was put into the U.K.

I'll start with you, Mr. McCann. Could you comment on those dynamics in other jurisdictions and how the code could potentially help bring more competitors into Canada?

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

Thank you.

That's a great segue to my question for Mr. Janzen.

Concerning Bill C-234, I—along with the Green Party and the Bloc Québécois—was happy to support that bill at third reading. In my interpretation of that bill, as Mr. McCann mentioned, it's in line and in the spirit of the original Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, in that there are already exemptions for farm fuels, farm machinery and farming activity. I see the provisions in Bill C-234 as being in the spirit of the original law. The Liberals, in 2018, recognized that there was a special place for agricultural activity. I think that Bill C-234 keeps in line with that. I was happy to support it at third reading, and I think I'm going to keep my vote consistent with the vote at third reading.

Mr. Janzen, just on the subject of fuel price volatility, it can have a significant impact. We did, as the House of Commons, program in a sunset clause. With respect to the greenhouse sector, are there some promising opportunities in the next decade whereby operators of greenhouses are able to switch to a more stable fuel source or mechanism to heat their greenhouses? Can we talk about some of the light that exists at the end of the tunnel so you're not subjected to that volatility?