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 Pricing

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know for a fact that farmers are asking the minister to axe the carbon tax.

The Prime Minister promised that the Senate would be independent, but the actions this past week prove that that is a complete farce. We know he bullied his senators. The Prime Minister himself was on the phone over the weekend telling them they had to gut Bill C-234.

The Prime Minister lied and his minions continue to lie about—

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, Liberal-appointed senators voted to gut common-sense Conservative Bill C-234, an action that betrays farmers.

For the last decade, the Prime Minister has repeatedly made the claim that the Senate and those he appoints to it are independent, yet this weekend proved otherwise. He and his socialist environment minister were busy employing a campaign of bullying and pressure to force his senators to kill this needed carbon tax carve-out. The carbon tax is punishing the farmers who produce the food and the folks who need it.

Will the Prime Minister finally just listen to Canadians and axe his carbon tax?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for the minister too, but she is going to have to explain to me why, whenever there is a tax hike, it always means taking even more money out of the pockets of Canadian families. That is exactly what the government is doing.

We had the solution with Bill C-234. It would give farmers a break, it would mean less tax to pay, it would stop food prices from continuing to rise under this Liberal government. Sadly, the Liberals decided to once again use their senator friends, whom they themselves appointed, to attack the wallets of Canadian taxpayers.

When will this government understand that it is costly to vote Liberal?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Liberal government, everything costs more and, unfortunately, it is not over yet.

As we know, the House passed Bill C-234 and even the Greens voted for this bill, which will give farmers a tax break. Then, on the weekend, the Prime Minister panicked. He picked up the phone and called the senators he appointed to make sure that Bill C-234 did not get passed. Unfortunately, it worked, and that is the problem.

Why is the Prime Minister always so quick to take even more money out of the pockets of Canadian families?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this weekend, it was the Prime Minister who was bullying the senators, calling them up and telling them to kill Bill C-234, a common-sense bill to help farmers and families. The Senate listened to him; it gutted the bill. However, people are suffering. People are hungry.

The food bank use in my riding is up over 100%, so will the Prime Minister finally listen to Canadians and take the carbon tax off farmers, first nations and families?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a desperate and panicking Prime Minister spent the weekend calling Liberal senators, pleading with them to keep the carbon tax on farmers. The Conservatives' common-sense plan would take the tax off the people who grow the food, ship the food, and, as a result, off Canadians who buy the food. Yesterday, he got his Christmas wish. Liberal senators gutted Bill C-234, a move that will keep food prices high while Canadians visit food banks in record numbers.

Will the Prime Minister finally listen to the outcry? Will he listen to anyone but his globe-trotting activist environment minister and take the tax off so people can put food on their tables this Christmas?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, after all of the intimidation and threats from the Conservatives towards parliamentarians concerning Bill C-234, it turns out that the only farming the Conservative Party cares about is rage farming, because all of this was just an attempt to fundraise off the backs of farmers.

Time and time again, the Conservative leader has shown that he wants to take Canadians back to the Stone Age instead of helping them get ahead. On this side of the House, the Liberal government will always be there to support farmers.

Carbon Tax

[Arpan Khanna, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, last night, the Liberal-appointed senators gutted Bill C-234, which will cost our farmers nearly $1 billion in carbon tax by 2030.

Farmer Gord in Oxford paid $50,000 for the carbon tax just to run his farm. Thanks to the Liberals, it is now cheaper to buy Mexican asparagus shipped from 3,800 kilometres away than it is to buy asparagus grown in Oxford.

After eight years of this Prime Minister, Canadians are struggling to put food on their tables. We are facing a cost of living crisis like never seen before, with tent cities popping up across our communities and homelessness increasing. More and more hard-working Canadians are now relying on food banks, but instead of axing the carbon tax to lower food prices, this panicking Prime Minister spent the weekend begging his senators to kill this bill.

The Liberal government has ruined Christmas for our families and our farmers, but Conservatives will stand up, fight back against this radical Liberal agenda and axe the tax and make sure we have provided relief to our farmers, families and first nations.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, now that the environment minister’s job is on the line, Liberals are increasingly more desperate to kill the carbon tax carve-out in Bill C-234.

Just in time for Christmas, this panicked Prime Minister ordered his hand-picked senators to exclude barn heating from any carbon tax relief in the bill. It is ideology above all else for the Liberal government. It would rather see millions of Canadians go hungry than provide farmers with carbon tax relief.

Bill told me that he paid $14,000 in carbon taxes this fall, and that in this environment of rising costs and declining revenues, it is a huge hit to his farm. The Prime Minister is not worth the cost. He is taxing farmers who grow our food, the truckers who ship the food and the stores that sell the food to everyday Canadians who are struggling to buy food.

Liberals and their coalition allies are punishing Canadians by making everything more expensive. Enough is enough. Conservatives will grind their high-tax agenda to a halt until the Prime Minister removes the carbon tax on farmers, families and first nations.

Carbon Pricing

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

Madam Speaker, I previously asked a question about Bill C-234 and the exemption to the carbon tax that it would provide. My question has changed a bit because, earlier tonight, the Senate passed an amendment to exclude barns and buildings on farms from the carbon tax exemption. I will read the part of Bill C-234 that the Senate is now going to scrub from the act, which is in paragraph 3(3.1)(f), “property that is used for the purpose of providing heating or cooling to a building or similar structure”.

The environment minister went to the Senate and basically exerted his influence on the senators to get them to strip this bill bare; that way, it would provide a limited exemption for farmers. Farmers grow the food and have done way more to protect and steward the environment than the government will ever have a hope of being able to accomplish. That is what the government has decided to do. It was aided by the deputy leader of the progressive Senate group, the hon. Pierre Dalphond, who was the mover of the amendment that has stripped that part of the bill to exempt buildings and barns from the carbon tax. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Let us go back to when the carbon tax was first put in place and do the calculations on it. There are many farmers, ranchers and cattle feeders who use over 100,000 litres of on-farm fuels in a given year. Given the rate of the carbon tax right now on those on-farm fuels, that would be about $25,000 a year. The Liberals will say that there is a huge exemption for farmers and ask what everyone is complaining about. There is an exemption that applies in some cases, but not in every case, and certainly not for farmers and ranchers who are trying to keep their barns warm in the winter. As we know, winter is already here; it will be -30°C very soon. In the summers, it gets up to +30°C. With the wide variance in temperatures all across Canada, various temperature controls are needed in barns and shops for farmers to do their jobs.

If we think about the Prairies, with the snowstorms and blizzards that they regularly get, especially in calving season in February and March, farmers quite often have to bring their cattle into the barn. That way, they can calve without the threat of the animals being buried in snowbanks or freezing to death, never mind the threat of predators going after them and using the weather conditions to their advantage. A very important part of agriculture is farmers having these barns and buildings, yet the Senate has decided to gut this important key in the bill. It did so under the pressure that was put on it by the Liberal government, which is absolutely shameful.

When we look at the approach the government is taking, it is almost as though it were trying to reduce agriculture's impact and footprint in such a way that it will chase people out of the industry, much like what is happening in the European Union and other parts of the world. They have literally forced farmers and ranchers to reduce their herd sizes and the amount of crop they are able to grow.

What the government is doing is ridiculous. It is being aided and abetted by certain members of the Senate, and it is absolutely disgusting.

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

Mr. Speaker, farmers know they are the leaders when it comes to environmental stewardship.

Just imagine we are young producers. We have grown up on the family farm and our goal is to take over after our parents retire. We start looking over the bills and costs associated with farming and one of the highest line items is the carbon tax imposed by the Prime Minister. Rather than hiring a helping hand or upgrading our machinery, we are paying an increasing carbon tax.

Therefore, why will the Prime Minister not let his senators pass Bill C-234 and axe the tax for on-farm fuels?

Consideration of Government Business No. 31

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

Mr. Speaker, this goes to show the view these parties in this House opposite the Conservatives hold about our oil and gas sector, our ag sector and every natural resource sector in this country, and it is so disheartening.

Centrally controlled leftist government economies have been tried around the world already, and it turns out they do not work. Canada must not follow the path of these countries of failed economies, like Cuba and Venezuela.

I recall a couple of weeks ago the member across the way for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill lamenting at the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development how farmers protesting the Liberal political interference in the Senate over Bill C-234 was leading us toward being a “tinpot dictatorship.”

With Bill C-50 and its intent to destroy Canadian jobs with this egregious programming motion, I guess the definition of a tinpot dictatorship is in the eye of the beholder.

Since the Liberals are trying to curb criticism on this bill, let us dive into what Bill C-50 would actually do. I have many criticisms of it, as do my constituents. At its core, this piece of legislation would do three things to enable the NDP-Liberal coalition’s so-called just transition.

First, it would establish the sustainable jobs partnership council to advise the government on how to implement its vision, with its members appointed by the minister. This is a great way to get policy cover: appoint a bunch of one's friends who already hate Canada’s natural resource sector and agriculture sector to this council to help implement one's shared objective, without regard for the impact on the people I represent and hundreds of members of Parliament represent.

Even worse is that while the unjust transition intrudes on provincial jurisdiction, the council would not include provinces, nor would it even be required to consult with them. We should not be surprised, after Bill C-69, the no-more-pipelines bill, was slapped down by the Supreme Court for its intrusion on provinces. The Liberals' war on plastic straws was slapped down by the Federal Court, and the clean electricity regulations are certainly going to be slapped down very soon.

These Liberals have absolutely no regard for provincial jurisdiction and have learned nothing from these past failures. The only thing the Prime Minister has learned is a cavalier approach, like his father took, that Ottawa knows best.

Second, the legislation would require the minister to table a sustainable jobs action plan to Parliament every five years. In other words, the Liberals want to hire more bureaucrats to take time developing a plan to report on the jobs they are able to successfully destroy in this country.

The Liberal-NDP coalition will destroy jobs in Canada, because it does not like those types of jobs. It will do it with callous disregard for the rural communities those jobs support and still will not even hit its environmental targets, because of course it thinks the best way to reduce emissions is by reducing the size of our economy. While it has been doing its very best, those pesky, innovative Canadians just keep trying to grow things, to mine things, to manufacture things and to build things in this country.

Finally, the bill would create a sustainable jobs secretariat that would “support the implementation of the act”. In different terms, the Liberals are going to further add to the already bloated public service, costing taxpayers more. This is how Liberals actually think we should grow our economy. With every job numbers update that comes out, they always boast of any new jobs being created, but they never highlight where those jobs are being created. They are always a majority of public sector jobs.

These are part-time jobs for people picking up jobs to try to pay for the costly carbon tax-driven increase of their cost of living in this country. This is at a time when the federal government is paying more interest on our federal debt than it pays for health care in this country. Canadians can thank the Liberals and their friends in the speNDP for this abject failure of fiscal policy. This is what the Liberal-NDP government is trying to do. It is always trying to find ways to grow the size of government and is never trying to find ways to have Canadians gain meaningful work to feed, heat and house themselves.

While I have touched on some of the specifics of Bill C-50, let us talk more about this so-called just transition and what it would cost Canadians. This started back in 2019 with a platform commitment from the Liberals. At its heart, this just transition is planning on devastating our energy industry.

We can all recall when the Prime Minister said, “We can't shut down the oil sands tomorrow. We need to phase them out.” This is how the Liberals plan to do it. This is part of the many pieces of legislation where they plan to phase out our entire energy sector.

I recognize the Liberals have already gone to work on reducing the size of our economy with their reckless inflationary spending. In fact, Statistics Canada just reported that our economy shrank by 1.1% while the economy of the United States grew by 5.2%. As our great Conservative leader put it, its economy is roaring while ours is snoring.

However, the Liberal plan would take it to a whole new level. According to an internal briefing, the plan would kill 170,000 direct Canadian jobs, displace 450,000 workers directly and indirectly working in the energy sector and risk the livelihoods of 2.7 million Canadians working in agriculture, construction, energy, manufacturing and transportation.

These economic losses would not be felt equally, since the plan is, of course, always meant to be divisive and designed to disproportionately harm natural resource-based regions, which is on brand with the Liberal strategy. What kind of politician sees these numbers and says it is a good idea to get that many Canadians fired? The Liberals must know best. They think since they are in Ottawa, they should dictate how the economy goes. It is appalling to think that any politician standing in this chamber thinks this is a reasonable approach to governing a country. At the end of the day, we should just call the Liberal-NDP coalition the anti-everything coalition.

The funnier thing is this piece of legislation is likely to prevent a transition to the clean-tech sector, because 75% of all private sector investment in clean tech comes from the sector the Liberals are trying to destroy: our energy sector. Without this investment, more handouts would be necessary to develop a clean-tech sector.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will start by saying that I will not be sharing my time, and I am happy about that. Next, I want to give an overview of the situation.

How did we get here? How did we get into this situation today, where it has become impossible for the Standing Committee on Natural Resources to study Bill C-50?

First of all, I would say that it is not unrelated to what we saw last week with Bill C‑234. Last week, with Bill C‑234, we talked at length in the House about what I like to call the “Carleton method”, the method employed by the new leader of the official opposition. It is based primarily on intimidation and misinformation.

Last week, I said that the first people to warn us about the Carleton method were actually the Conservative MPs from Quebec. They did not support the member for Carleton in the leadership race because they knew full well that he often used questionable methods. I will simply give the example of what one of the former Conservative Party members went through. This method, which relies on intimidation and misinformation, has become a common practice at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources.

On October 30, we began discussing a motion that would have allowed us to study Bill C‑50. As ridiculous as it may seem, what the Standing Committee on Natural Resources spent the next month doing was trying to determine who had the floor. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan joined the committee meeting. As we know, a committee has a certain number of members, including one member from the Bloc Québécois who has the right to vote. There are four Conservative members who have the right to vote and speak at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. However, the Conservatives decided that five or six of them would attend and that they would all ask to speak.

Not knowing what to do, the chair said that we would have to determine who the voting members are in order to know who has the right to speak. The Conservatives then objected, stating that the chair would be violating their parliamentary rights and privileges if he did not allow to them to speak. My colleagues may or may not believe it, but we spent a month listening to points of order about whose turn it was to speak. Is that serious? I highly doubt it. It is not childishness, it is not filibustering. I do not know what to call this waste of time, but I would say that it is nonsense. Nonsense, pure and simple.

First we spent a month trying to figure out whose turn it was to talk. Then we spent time on some things that, in my opinion, were even less edifying. The member for Red Deer—Mountain View told us that oil could be used to create peace in the world. His goal is to bring peace to the world through Canadian oil. According to my colleague on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, if Canadian oil were used more, then there would be no more war in Ukraine. Perhaps peace in the Middle East could be achieved with the help of Canadian oil.

That is not all. I was introduced to an entirely new concept. I used to teach political science, but my colleague from Red Deer—Mountain View talked to me about eco-colonialism. Apparently, we are engaging in eco-colonialism if we do not allow indigenous peoples to freely develop oil. When it comes to colonialism, I am familiar with Edward Said's Orientalism. Like everyone, I am familiar with Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, but I have never heard of eco-colonialism. I spent almost 15 years talking about political science in universities, but this was a whole new concept for me. I was informed that we could bring peace to the world with oil and that eco-colonialism is something that is done to indigenous communities. There is not much difference between saying this and saying that we are using certain indigenous communities to advance the interests of big oil.

I learned something else rather interesting from the member for Provencher. The member for Provencher came and told the committee that he was a big fan of muscle cars. He recalled the late 1970s and early 1980s when people were free to drive big, fast gas guzzlers.

In a fit of nostalgia, he lamented that this was what we were losing. The member for Provencher also recalled that he used to be able to drink his milkshake with a plastic straw. The member for Provencher hates drinking his milkshake with a paper straw because it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. I found that out at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. Why could we not return to this wonderful world where we could have world peace and everyone could be happy thanks to gasoline, muscle cars and plastic straws?

That is what I learned from my Conservative colleagues while we should have been considering Bill C‑50. This has been going on for over a month. That is why I say that some kind of rot seems to be taking hold of my Conservative Party colleagues. This rot is a kind of populism that might seem practically irrelevant, looking on from the outside, but that appears to be spreading within our committees, based on what I have seen in the past month. Since October 30, members have been telling us that we must not study Bill C‑50 for a variety of flimsy reasons.

After that, we were supposed to consider subamendments. The main subamendments that I saw proposed at committee applied to my colleague from Timmins—James Bay. I do like that member, although I would not say that I am his biggest fan. Still, I have nothing against him. I could not understand why the Conservatives insisted that the purpose of the subamendment was to hear from the people of Timmins—James Bay. They did this for my colleague from Timmins—James Bay and for my colleague from Sudbury.

Why did they want to hear from the people of Timmins—James Bay and Sudbury specifically? Once again, it was a flimsy pretext for getting my colleague from Timmins—James Bay to vote against the amendment so that they could then tell his constituents that their MP was not interested in hearing from them, even though it had absolutely nothing to do with Bill C-50. Once again, as I was saying earlier, this is intimidation and disinformation. It has been going on for over a month at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources.

This is symptomatic of something I have been seeing since 2019, something I would call the Conservatives' all-consuming passion for the oil and gas industry. The Conservative members are as passionate about the oil industry as the Bloc Québécois members are about defending Quebec, Quebec's language and Quebec's culture.

I gave the example of my arrival in the House of Commons in 2019. I could hear people shouting “build the pipeline”. That is really something. Even though we are proud of Hydro-Québec, I have never heard a Bloc member shout “build the hydro towers". We have not gotten to that point. I have never heard that. The climax was when a motion was moved here saying that oil is irreplaceable. According to the Conservative members, oil is irreplaceable, the same way water or air or our relationship with our family is irreplaceable. To some Conservative members, oil is irreplaceable.

We are faced with a startling fact: The Leader of the Opposition wants to stay in the 20th century. He does not want to put an end to our dependence on oil. The oil and gas industry is his stock-in-trade. Unfortunately, I often get the impression that my Conservative Party colleagues are acting more like lobbyists for one economic sector than like representatives of their ridings.

Why do I say that? It is rather simple. Last week, some members from Quebec forgot all about the interests of Quebec farmers. They rose to ask why the Senate was not examining Bill C-234 and why we were seeing partisanship from some senators. I would remind the House that Bill C‑234 seeks to temporarily include the propane used to run grain dryers in the exemption for qualifying farming fuel. The much-talked-about carbon tax does not apply in Quebec, but there are members from Quebec who are asking questions in the House about why the senators are not passing that bill and who are talking about how terrible it is that they are not doing so. Meanwhile, the supply management bill is also languishing in the Senate. Who is holding that up? Let me give the answer. The Conservative senators are the ones who do not want to move forward on the supply management bill.

Imagine an MP from Quebec who has the president of the dairy farmers' association in their riding. Imagine that MP standing up in the House, saying that this is disgusting and asking why Canadian farmers are still paying for propane. However, this MP does not even mention supply management. Whose interests are they defending when they do things like that? Are they standing up for the interests of their constituents in the House of Commons, or are they standing up for the interests of the Conservative Party in their riding? I will let those members answer for themselves.

Personally, I think this clearly demonstrates that the Conservatives have a blind spot when it comes to the oil and gas sector. We have seen this over and over during the past month with Bill C‑50. I would say the Liberal Party is much the same. Why do I say that? When we pore over Bill C‑50 together later on, it will become clear that the Liberal Party also spared no effort trying to take a bill that was supposed to be about a just transition and make it acceptable to the main players in the oil and gas sector.

Just to come back to that and sum up what I just said, Bill C‑50 was initially supposed to focus on a concept accepted by all western nations, that of the just transition. It was supposed to be about that. The Standing Committee on Natural Resources did a study on the just transition. However, toward the end of that study, the conversation somehow stopped being about the just transition and started being about sustainable jobs. Why did that happen?

I wondered about that. Many unions came to see me to talk about the just transition. During the study, “just transition” was used in the wording. However, toward the end, that term stopped being used. Why? It is because people in the Liberal party were approached by certain people, people who may be close to the Premier of Alberta, and they told the Liberals that they do not like talking about transitions and that the Liberals should instead change directions and find another strategy. On the one hand, there is that. Some people told me, but I do not want to belabour the point because they may have had malicious intentions, that a play on words could be made between the Prime Minister's name and “just transition”, just as a rather spurious play on words was made between the Prime Minister's name and the issue of inflation. If they did that, if they changed the intent of a bill just because of a play on words, I would say that they are spineless.

Basically, they changed directions to please the Premier of Alberta and to appease the backbone of Canada's industrial sector, namely the oil and gas sector. Earlier, I asked my colleague from Lakeland if she believed in climate change, if she believed that the oil and gas industry was one of the main contributors to climate change, and if she believed that we should get out of the oil and gas industry. The reason I was asking my colleague these questions is that, in actual fact, Bill C‑50 is trying to reflect on the necessary transition. We will have to get out of oil and gas. Whether we like it or not, we will have to do it. The other advanced western nations are putting a lot of public funds into doing that. That is what the U.S. is doing. It is spending a huge amount of public funds to get out of oil and gas. However, Canada is trapped in this particular context where the economy largely relies on the oil and gas sector, and there is no political will to change that.

Earlier, I summarized the Conservatives' speeches. The Conservatives' political thinking over the past six months could be summed up in just two words: “carbon tax”. They want to eliminate the carbon tax. They blame the carbon tax for everything. I will say it again because I have to say it every time: The carbon tax does not apply in Quebec. The leader of the Conservative Party has said that the carbon tax will be the ballot box question. That means that in the next election, the ballot box question will be over something that does not apply in Quebec. That is rather surprising. Still, the Conservatives are all over it. The Conservative Party has been obsessed with the carbon tax for the past year. This demonstrates one simple fact: They do not believe in climate change. It seems to me that the last person in the Conservative Party who believed in climate change was Erin O'Toole.

I love this great quote from Erin O'Toole: “We recognize that the most efficient way to reduce our emissions is to use pricing mechanisms.”

Carbon Pricing

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, can this government listen to common sense? It has been in power for eight years. Can the Liberals get out of their bubble and worry about real people?

Voting for the Bloc Québécois is costly. Here is another example: Aided and abetted by the Bloc Québécois, the Liberals are blocking Bill C‑234, which would give breathing room to our farmers and our Canadians families.

Will the Prime Minister finally drop his plan to drastically increase the carbon tax on the backs of farmers and Canadian families?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is unbelievable how out of touch that ag minister is. Jake from Vermeer's Dairy near Camrose saw a bill of $1,700 in carbon tax charges alone last month. It is going to be more as winter settles in on the Canadian Prairies. It is clear that these Liberals do not have an environmental plan but, rather, a tax plan that punishes those who are best equipped to lower the price of food in this country.

My question is simple. Will those Liberals tell their Liberal-appointed senators to pass common-sense Conservative Bill C-234 to axe the tax so farmers can feed our people?