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.

Opposition Motion—Confidence in the Prime Minister and the Government

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, every member of Parliament is entitled to his or her own view in this place, but I did not hear anything about the fact that Canada is expected to lead the G7 in economic growth next year. I did not hear anything about BHP's investment in her home province of Saskatchewan and how that is a good thing. I did not hear much about Canada's best deficit position in the G7 or the fact that wage growth has outpaced inflation for the last 18 months. There are challenges, undoubtedly, but there are some good things happening, although we would never know that from the opposition.

I do want to ask this on agriculture, because she has a lot of grain farmers in Saskatchewan. Bill C-234 is before the House. It has not been called to a vote because consecutive Conservative members have continued to get up and speak without letting it be called to a vote. There is a majority in the House allowing for the grain provisions on grain drying to pass. Will that member commit to pushing her own party to allow that vote to happen so we can get support for grain farmers? Will that happen? Will she talk to the member for Huron—Bruce?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member of Parliament for Calgary Forest Lawn.

Canadians are desperate. They are desperate for a new government. That is because after nine years of the Prime Minister, life has never been harder for Canadians. His failed policies, propped up by the NDP at every opportunity, have doubled the debt, doubled housing costs, caused the worst inflation in 40 years, sent a record number of Canadians to food banks and unleashed crime and chaos in our communities.

Canadians deserve better. They should be able to come home from work with a paycheque that puts a roof over their heads and food on their tables. However, that is not the reality for far too many Canadians.

The Prime Minister's cost of living crisis has become so severe that even working Canadians have to depend on food banks or are skipping meals just to get by. In a single month last year, food banks had a record two million visits. Year over year, the Prime Minister's inflation and taxes have caused grocery prices to surge. The average Canadian family will pay $700 more above and beyond the high prices they paid last year.

The Prime Minister's plan to quadruple his punishing carbon tax is only going to make things worse. In the midst of an ongoing affordability crisis in our country, the Prime Minister hiked taxes again on groceries, he ignored Canadians who are begging for relief and he turned a deaf ear to premiers across the country.

Despite the NDP leader's recent claim that he opposed the carbon tax because of the burden it places on workers, Canadians know that the Prime Minister hiked the carbon tax with the enthusiastic support of his NDP partner. In fact, NDP members voted for the carbon tax at least 24 times in this place. They are every bit as responsible as the Prime Minister for adding to the cost of fuel, groceries, home heating and just about every necessity that Canadians need.

The NDP-Liberal carbon tax is punishing Canadians for going to work, taxing moms and dads for driving their kids to hockey or to dance classes, penalizing the seniors who are on fixed incomes for eating a nutritious meal and diving deep into the pockets of Canadians for simply trying to stay warm in the winter. Punishing Canadians for life's basic necessities is cruel and it does nothing to safeguard the environment.

The costly carbon tax is even more punishing in my province of Saskatchewan. When people live in a rural or small community, public transit simply is not an option. They simply have to drive further distances to get to work or to simply go to school. The reality is that people are going to drive a little further to get groceries or prescriptions, never mind a doctor or specialist appointment that could literally be hours away. When temperatures dip to -50C, heat is not a luxury; it is a necessity. That is the lived experience in Saskatchewan and for so many rural Canadians across the country. It is a reality that the government conveniently ignores time and time again.

Just like how the Liberal-NDP government pretends that Canadians are somehow better off because of its punishing carbon tax, it conveniently ignores all the evidence around it, including reports from the independent Parliamentary Budget Office. In fact, we learned last spring that the government hid its own reports to that effect.

The PBO has been clear that most families will pay more in carbon tax than they get back in rebates. This year, families in Saskatchewan will pay, on average, $2,618 in carbon taxes alone. That is money better spent on their own families' priorities and needs.

Let us not forget about our farmers, who are paying massive carbon tax bills. By 2030, Canadian farmers are expected to pay $1 billion in carbon taxes on the propane and natural gas they use to heat and cool their barns, greenhouses and grain-drying operations. Never mind the carbon tax costs that are added to every purchase they make for their farm operations.

Farmers are leaders in sustainability and they deserve relief. The Prime Minister is dead set on getting those dollars from our farmers, using his Liberal-appointed Senators to gut Bill C-234, a Conservative bill that would have offered carbon tax relief for our farmers.

Shamefully, the Prime Minister is willing to jeopardize the viability of farm businesses and food security in our country just to drive home his own activist-driven agenda and pay for his own reckless spending. Farmers in my riding have had enough. They want a government that does not punish them for their hard work. They just want to earn an honest living and grow safe, delicious, nutritious food for Canada and for the world.

Fortunately, there is hope on the horizon. A Conservative government will restore common sense in Ottawa. The Conservatives have a plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. We will bring down inflation with a dollar in savings for every new dollar spent. We will cut the carbon tax that is adding to the cost of everything for Canadians. The Conservatives will bring home lower prices so that Canadians can reap the rewards of their hard work. We will remove the gatekeepers who have slowed housing construction. We will create well-paying jobs for Canadians by green-lighting energy projects at home instead of driving away production into the hands of dirty dictators.

The Conservatives will take meaningful action to address the crime and the chaos that have become far too commonplace in communities across the country. We will do that by dismantling the Prime Minister's catch-and-release system that is endangering the lives of Canadians. We will also end the Prime Minister's dangerous drug experiment that is flooding our streets with taxpayer-funded hard drugs. Instead, we will invest in treatment and recovery so that Canadians can bring their loved ones home drug-free.

After nine years of the Prime Minister, Canadians are desperate. They are so desperate for much-needed relief. What Canadians do not need are media stunts from the NDP leader.

The NDP leader told Canadians that he was tearing up his coalition agreement with the Liberal government. He told Canadians that the deal was done, that the Prime Minister did not deserve to govern. Now that the votes have been counted in that Winnipeg by-election, and there is a simple motion in front of the House, the NDP leader has conveniently changed his tune.

The motion we are debating today is very straightforward, “That the House has no confidence in the Prime Minister and the government.” If the NDP leader were sincere in his declarations to Canadians, there should be no question. However, what Canadians are once again learning is that NDP members are not focused on what is best for Canadians. They are focused on their own interests and protecting their own pensions. Despite their desperation to try to distance themselves from the terrible record of the Prime Minister, which, to be clear, is equally their own record, having voted hand in hand with the Liberal government for its failed policies and activist-driven agenda, the NDP is once again failing to be the opposition party that it was elected to be. It must be arts-and-crafts time as it is too busy taping up that coalition agreement that the NDP leader ripped up.

Across the country, Canadians are begging for relief. It is time for the Bloc and the NDP to stop protecting the costly Prime Minister who is hurting Canadians. Enough is enough, and time is up for the Prime Minister. The NDP and Bloc need to join Conservatives and give Canadians the carbon tax election that they so desperately need.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as it relates to carbon pricing, I have actually taken this government to task, to adjust the national program in the interest of supporting rural Canadians, but let me be very clear. I do support the government's environmental agenda. When I look across to the opposition, I do not see much of an environmental agenda whatsoever.

I take notice of the hon. member opposite. Yes, he has rightfully fought to try to make sure there are further adjustments and refinements to the national program to make sure his constituents, who I think are demonstrably rural, are supportive. However, let us not mistake the facts on a couple of things. This government does have an environmental agenda that matters. It has actually grown the economy while reducing emissions at the same time. As it relates to Bill C-234, he should walk across and talk to the member for Huron—Bruce about when he is going to let it be called to a vote. Our farmers in this country deserve Bill C-234 to be passed but the Conservatives are standing in the way of letting it be called to a vote. We need to have that vote sooner rather than later.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my hon. colleague could comment on rural Canadians being disproportionately affected by the carbon tax. He especially knows about standing up for constituents, such as my constituents in York—Simcoe, who have been classified by the government as part of Toronto. He knows that I represent the soup and salad bowl. He knows that the government is now dividing Canadians based on geography with that tax and how that tax is so unfair for my residents and farmers right across Canada, not getting Bill C-234 done.

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, after nine years of the Liberal government, we know that life has never cost Canadians more. Across the country, Canadians are going hungry in record numbers. The Prime Minister's reckless budgeting and failed policies have caused the worst inflation in 40 years, and food prices have skyrocketed. This year alone, families will spend $700 more on groceries than they did last year, and that number keeps growing year after year.

Food Banks Canada has reported a 50% increase in visits since 2021 with a record-breaking two million visits in a single month. Hard-working Canadians should not have to rely on food banks to not go hungry. However, that is the government's record. Only one in six adults visiting a food bank is unemployed, meaning they do not have a job. In other words, that means five out of six Canadians who are visiting a food bank are employed. These Canadians cannot make ends meet. Their paycheques are overstretched and they are not keeping up with the rising costs caused by the Prime Minister's inflationary deficits and taxes.

What is certain is that the Prime Minister's plan to quadruple the carbon tax is only going to make things worse. The carbon tax is adding to the cost of groceries at every single point in the food supply chain. At the end of the day, Canadians will pay the price. Conservatives have said over and over again in this House that when we tax the farmer who grows the food, the trucker who ships the food and the grocer who sells the food, it is going to cost Canadians more.

It is not just Conservatives the Prime Minister is ignoring. The Canadian Trucking Alliance recently reported that the NDP-Liberal coalition's carbon tax added $2 billion to long-haul trucking costs this year alone. That figure will go up to $4 billion in 2030. The Canadian Trucking Alliance was clear that these costs “cannot be absorbed [by truckers] and must be passed on to customers.” That means Canadians. That is moms and dads, students and seniors who are on fixed incomes. They are all picking up the bill for the Prime Minister's punishing carbon tax.

Food insecurity should not be a problem in a country like Canada, but more and more Canadians do not know where they are going to get their next meal from. The increased costs on farm businesses threaten their long-term viability. Our farmers produce safe, nutritious, good-quality food, but if the cost of doing business continues to increase exponentially, it will eventually put our hard-working farmers out of business. That is the threat not only to the agriculture industry but to Canadians and all those around the world who depend on the food grown here in Canada.

Our farmers pay retail prices for everything they buy for their farm businesses, but they sell products at cost. Farm businesses already had tight margins and the costly carbon tax is a massive hit to their bottom line. There are massive carbon tax bills and they are only growing. Saskatchewan farmers paid $12 million last year in carbon taxes on natural gas and propane to dry grain, heat and cool livestock barns, and grow their food. With this year's carbon tax hike, that number will go up to $15 million. By 2030, it is estimated that the carbon tax will cost a typical 5,000-acre farm in Canada $150,000 in carbon taxes.

Our farmers cannot afford the carbon tax. It is absolutely critical that the government pass Bill C-234 in its original form. We cannot afford to lose our Canadian farm families. Passing Bill C-234 in its original form would also acknowledge the work that our farmers are already doing to safeguard our environment. Our farmers are global leaders in sustainability. They have been mitigating, removing and sequestering greenhouse gases long before the Prime Minister and his punishing carbon tax.

For years, our farmers have delivered meaningful reductions in emissions through the adoption of new technologies, education and innovative management practices. Our farmers care for the environment because it is in their DNA to do so. They know how important it is for their farm businesses and for future generations. It does not make sense to to punish our farmers, who are already doing so much to protect the environment, with costly and punishing taxes.

The Prime Minister's carbon tax is not about the environment at all. It is actually just a tax plan. If it was about the environment, the Prime Minister would recognize the sustainability work of our farmers. Taxing our farmers does nothing to help with the environment. In actuality, it harms their ability to reinvest in their businesses and adopt the latest technologies.

Bill C-234 in its original form would remove the carbon tax on propane and natural gas for greenhouses, heating and cooling livestock barns, and grain drying. The PBO has reported that Bill C-234 in its original form would save farmers nearly $1 billion by 2030. What that really means is that the Prime Minister wants to take $1 billion from our farmers, who already have very thin and often unpredictable margins, so that he can pay for his out-of-control spending habits.

Passing Bill C-234 in its original form will keep those dollars in the businesses of our farmers and will help keep farming a more viable business. However, we know that the Senate has gutted Bill C-234, which threatens the savings. The removal of barns and greenhouses from the carbon tax exemption and the shortening of the sunset clause fall very short of what this bill was trying to achieve.

These amendments were not requested by farmers or by farm groups, nor was it requested by Canadians. In fact, polling shows that the majority of Canadians support scrapping the carbon tax on farmers. Farmers across commodities were unified in their support of this bill in its original form. Shamefully, the Prime Minister used Liberal-appointed Senators to gut this bill, and according to the PBO, the gutted bill will eliminate $910 million in relief to farmers.

When it comes to the carbon tax, the Prime Minister is not listening. He is not listening to Canadians who are going hungry. He is not listening to the premiers. He is certainly not listening to Conservatives, and he is not listening to our farmers. Canadians cannot afford to have the Prime Minister continue to bury his head in the sand while his finance minister pretends that Canadians have never had it so good.

The Liberal government needs to pass Bill C-234 in its original form and stop burdening our farmers with enormous costs so that they continue to do what they do best, which is to increase their productivity, do more with less and lead in sustainability and innovation, all while growing safe, nutritious and good-quality food for Canada and the world.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Madam Speaker, I will share my time tonight with the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster.

I am pleased to rise on behalf of the people of Saskatoon—Grasswood here tonight to speak about this concurrence in committee report. Canadians have sent a clear message to the government: They are struggling to keep up with the cost of living and are not getting the support they need. In the middle of this historic cost of living crisis, the Prime Minister decided to hike the carbon tax by 23%. This is just one step in his plan to quadruple the carbon tax over the next six years, a tax that will continue to increase the cost of food for all Canadians.

The panicking Liberals are back to resorting to every trick in the book, trying desperately to prevent farmers from getting a carbon tax carve-out for grain drying, barn heating and other farm operations. The amendment would be another blow to the wallets of Canadians. It would reduce fresh produce availability by some fifty per cent, while costing the industry a remarkable $5.6 billion. I want to talk tonight about how the government and the industry can fight back against rising food price volatility.

I come from the province of Saskatchewan, where people are proud to say that we feed the world. However, times are now changing desperately for producers in the province, as costs have soared under the Liberal-NDP government.

As chair of the Saskatchewan caucus, I can say that we have had extensive talks with SARM, which is the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities. During our talks with president Ray Orb and the entire board at SARM, they brought up the inflationary pressures from the government that are simply killing rural Saskatchewan. The carbon tax, which had increased by 23% as of April 1, led to SARM members' writing letters to every member on the agriculture committee.

The premier of Saskatchewan, Scott Moe, led six other provincial premiers who were opposed to the government's carbon tax increase. Even in the legislature of Saskatchewan, the opposition NDP agreed with the Sask Party on the carbon tax. Saskatchewan has been joined by Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in asking for a carbon tax carve-out for the farmers and to pass Bill C-234 in its original form.

We should talk about Bill C-234 because it would provide relief to Saskatchewan farmers, but let us recall it was the Liberal-controlled Senate that gutted the bill in that place. The Senate amendments would cost Saskatchewan farmers $9 million this year, and by 2030, an added cost of $96 million. That is from one bill, Bill C-234.

Provinces like B.C., where MLAs once actually supported a carbon tax, have turned right around. They have turned their backs on the federal government, although we all know it is flip-flop for Premier Eby, as he knows he will probably be going down in the next 28 days.

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture surveyed the impact of the carbon tax on crop production, livestock and greenhouse farms across this country. It found that the carbon tax accounted for up to 40% of their energy bills. In my province alone, farm efforts to sequester carbon have gone basically unrecognized by the NDP-Liberal government.

The policies by the NDP-Liberals are simply punishing farmers. The government's ideological pursuit to penalize greenhouse gas emitters through the carbon tax, to me, is very short-sighted and inequitable. Farmers have, for years, maybe even decades, demonstrated an ability to deliver meaningful reductions in emissions through the adoption of new technologies, through education and through innovative practices, not through taxes.

In Saskatoon, we hold the crop production show every January at Prairieland Park, which, by the way, is in my riding. Thousands of producers come from all over western Canada and the United States to talk about farming innovation. Then, in July, just a couple of months ago, we had Ag in Motion just outside of Saskatoon, in Langham, bringing tens of thousands of producers together from all over the world to find best practices. One could not get a hotel room within a 100-kilometre radius of Saskatoon; everything was full for that four-day show. I cannot forget about the Canadian Western Agribition show in Regina each November, as it services farmers and ranchers from all over the world, and we are innovative in our thoughts going forward.

Farming groups are on the leading edge of innovation. We have led for years, for decades, trying to find innovative ways to produce food for the entire world. I compliment the innovative companies that have set up in my province, like Bourgault; Agtron; Brandt Industries; Schulte Industries; Bin-Sense, a new company that just started in Saskatchewan; Redekop Industries; and Wilger Industries, which, by the way, sell their product to John Deere and Case worldwide. Many other companies have surfaced in Saskatchewan. All one has to do is go to the small communities in my province. Every little town has set up something on agriculture, and that is what is keeping them alive. Saskatchewan has led the world for decades on zero tillage. It has led on direct seeding, crop rotation and rotational grazing.

With the Bank of Canada confirming that the carbon tax was responsible for at least 16% of inflation last October, it is no wonder that the food professor that we have talked about from Dalhousie University, Dr. Charlebois, recommended a pause on the carbon tax for the entire food industry. We in the Conservative Party also want to axe the tax. We know that it is hurting every citizen in this country. Why? Two million people are visiting food banks today in this country, with 25,000 in my city of Saskatoon, a city of just under 300,000 people. We have 25,000 people per month visiting the Saskatoon Food Bank, in a province that produces food for the entire world.

Yesterday, I had the chance to pop into a grocery store in downtown Ottawa. I was shocked. Three tomatoes cost $5.50, three apples cost $5.00, raspberries were $6.00 and the list goes on and on.

We had a chance to visit Yorkton Grain Millers about a year, a year and a half ago. It supplies oats. It has one production facility in Canada and several others in the United States. The day that we arrived at the mill was fantastic. There were trucks lined up 24-7. These trucks transport oats from as far as 200 kilometres away.

The carbon tax we have talked about is affecting the trucking industry deeply. It is hard to compete against other jurisdictions that do not have a carbon tax. We saw it first-hand in Yorkton and how the producers around the Yorkton, Manitoba and Saskatchewan area are feeding off grain millers.

My dad was the head miller at Robin Hood in Ontario, Moose Jaw and Saskatoon. If he were alive today, he would be shocked, because it is the cost of production that is going through the roof that has hurt every Canadian coast to coast to coast.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would have liked to have the opportunity to ask my colleague one last question. Since he is still here, I will ask him anyway. Perhaps he can answer me by me asking a question.

He spoke about supply management in response to a question from my NDP colleague. He said that his government has always supported supply management. That is reasonably accurate. Bill C-282, which is important, was passed in the House in June, not in June of 2024, but in June of 2023. The Senate will finally start examining the bill on Wednesday, September 25. My colleague said that his government supports supply management. He officially supported the bill. Even the minister at the time voted in favour of it on behalf of the executive branch of the government. Perhaps it is time to pick up the phone and ask the Senate to deal with this promptly. I am not sure it is reasonable to take over a year to begin examining a bill. That was the comment I wanted to make. If the person in question did not hear it, members can pass the question on to him.

Today's debate revolves around concurrence in the report entitled “How Government and Industry Can Fight Back Against Food Price Volatility”. The title is important; we are talking about fighting volatility, not controlling prices. We all want food to be less expensive. We have all seen terrible inflation in the food sector, while in other sectors inflation was under control or not as high.

We obviously do not live in a totalitarian regime. The government cannot set food prices. It must therefore take action to try to tame the volatility. Funnily enough, supply management is one of the best methods our farmers have found to control price volatility. We always end up with prices that are reasonable and based on the average cost of production. We are therefore encouraging people to be more efficient while also letting them make a decent living. At the end of the day, the consumer pays a reasonable price. We should be looking at these models. That is why we need to pass this bill quickly.

This is the committee's 18th report. I wanted to mention the number of reports because I think that the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food is exemplary. Its members work together in the interest of the common good—until recently anyway. Let us hope it stays that way. People are working to adopt measures to help the agriculture sector.

This study was resumed after the call of the Minister of Industry, who had a meeting with the five major grocery stores. These five big grocery companies control 80% of the food market in the country. They were asked to make an effort. The file came back to us. At committee, we had already done a study on the same topic. We ended up studying the same thing twice. That was not exactly efficient, but it did allow us to be more thorough and confront the five big grocery companies.

These sectors trample on the competition to then become an oligopoly. No matter what any executive of these companies might claim tomorrow morning, next week or in six months, when five companies control 80% of the market in a given sector, that is an oligopoly. If they are not colluding, because that is illegal, then they are at least watching each other and copying each other. We only need to look at the bonuses that were cut at the end of the COVID-19 crisis: They ended on the very same day for everyone. What a coincidence.

All irony aside, when we heard from these companies' CEOs last spring, they all agreed to give the Competition Bureau their profit figures. The Competition Bureau had been tasked with studying what was happening with grocery prices. I personally put the question to the five representatives. They claimed that there were no big profits. They told us that they had managed to keep the same margins because of pharmacy activities or other factors. When we asked them to show us figures supporting their claims, they told us they could not comply because they were all competitors.

The Competition Bureau was doing more or less the same study as we were, at the same time. However, the Bureau's studies are more confidential. We asked company CEOs if they would provide the Competition Bureau with their figures, and they all said yes, with no exceptions.

A few weeks later, we received the Competition Bureau's report. In the first few pages, the report's authors lamented the lack of transparency and the fact that they had not been able to obtain the much-talked-about figures. When we met with the CEOs again in committee a few months later, I asked each of them the same question. I told them that, apparently, some of them had not provided their figures. I then asked them if they had. They all said yes.

It really is a beautiful world we live in, is it not? Somebody somewhere did not tell the truth. We just do not who it is. This example, which is a little anecdotal, I agree, is still important. It is a matter of transparency towards the government. This example shows that one of the government's responsibilities is to ensure that sectors remain competitive.

The committee came up with several very interesting recommendations. I see colleagues who sit on the committee with me. I am almost sure they would agree with my next statement. We have published 18 reports. We work very hard. We are serious and rigorous. When we adopt a report, it usually passes by consensus or with an overwhelming majority. We want these proposals to move forward. However, if we were to measure the thickness of the dust covering each of these reports, which are sitting on the shelf, we would be very disappointed. That is the first point I wanted to make. When I was rereading the recommendations just now, I thought to myself how good the report was. There is only one exception, one small caveat that I will get to later. Otherwise, it was a wonderful report.

I will return to the recommendations. The first reads as follows:

The Committee, noting the particular importance of temporary foreign workers to the agriculture and agri-food sectors, recommends that the Government of Canada reduce the administrative burden....

This has still not been done. We are still waiting. The government has even made things worse. We suggested asking for fewer labour market impact assessments and now they are requested more frequently than ever. They used to be requested once a year, but now it is every six months. We might understandably hesitate to write anything in the next report for fear that the government will do the opposite. It is a little ironic. Sometimes we wonder whether the recommendations we adopt in committee serve any purpose at all.

We therefore need to be careful about that. We need to keep the recognized employer pilot program going. We also need to be careful in the agri-food sector. We often talk about the agricultural industry but less often about the agri-food sector. Let us remember that what is produced must be processed before it is eaten. Agri-food is the next step, an extension of the agriculture industry. There are no limits on the number of foreign workers that can be hired in the agriculture industry, but there are limits in the agri-food sector. It is difficult to hire workers to cut up pork in a meat factory. I can tell members that. I would invite the MPs who have not already done so to visit a food processing plant. It will become obvious to them that we need these workers.

Is it 30%? Is it 20%? Is it 10%? I am concerned about the last announcement. The cap was reduced from 30% to 20%. There was talk of reducing it to 10%. I hope that agri-food will not be affected by this 10% limit. My colleague from Drummond asked the parliamentary secretary about this a few minutes ago. It is important to be smart. Every time the government does something, it has to think about the consequences. It should not do something just to have a nice announcement. It needs to look at how the measures put in place will apply on a daily basis.

I am not saying that it is wrong to lower the cap from 20% to 10% in other labour sectors. However, in agri-food, I think this will create a serious problem. I would not want to see food processing centres move elsewhere in a few years because they cannot recruit workers. We can mechanize production and make investments, but the government still needs to have a little more vision and provide incentives to modernize these processing plants. That was another one of our recommendations, but it did not appear in the report. This recommendation was included in a number of reports, but it has not yet been implemented. I would therefore invite the ministers to read the committee reports.

The first recommendation was to be thorough and take regional characteristics into account before making any changes.

The second recommendation had a lot to do with the impact of climate change, something we have talked about. Even grocery store suppliers told us that it was sometimes hard to get supply and that they had to go elsewhere because of weather events that had impacted supply. That can create scarcity, which also leads to higher prices. All of this needs to be taken into account. That is why we need to ensure that we have local food resilience, that we are able to feed our people and keep our farmers in place. To keep them in place, we might have to support them more than we currently do, through the risk management programs, for example. That was not part of this study. We did not mention it again, but we did have discussed it at length and we have produced more than one report on the subject.

The sustainable Canadian agricultural partnership will be renewed in 2028. I feel like we are going to wait until November 2027 to start talking about it, when the government should already be sitting down with stakeholders to see what changes need to be made. We will need to make major changes here, unless we do not want it to work. These programs need an in-depth review, better funding and, above all, a better coverage rate.

Some agricultural producers are telling me that they no longer take out insurance because the likelihood that it will benefit them to be insured is so small compared to the high premiums they are being charged and the small payout they will receive in compensation. That does not work for a company. These people are business owners. Farming tends to be romanticized, but first and foremost, farmers are business owners. They need to balance their books at the end of the month. Things are so hard now that 44% of Quebec farmers have a second job. They work off the farm so they can balance their books at the end of the month. Is it right for the people who feed us to have to take on other work? They take the train in the morning, go to work, come home and go back to the farm in the evening. It makes no sense and it needs to be addressed. It is easy for me to go off on a tangent.

The only recommendation the Bloc Québécois expressed concern about was recommendation 3, which calls on the Government of Canada to pass Bill C‑234 unamended. We initially backed this bill because we believe in the agriculture exemption. However, when it came back from the Senate with an amendment, we suggested embracing the step forward that it represented and then determining what could be done about the buildings. The Senate had taken out the buildings.

Of course, decisions are sometimes difficult to make. However, I think it was the right decision under the circumstances. As a matter of fact, when the bill came back from the Senate, we could have wrapped it up in a week, finished debate, voted and accepted this proposal. That way, farmers would be entitled to the exemption for grain drying now, this fall. I remember that the first speech I made when we came back in January 2024 was about that exact aspect. It was almost a year ago.

Instead, the Conservatives decided to kill time with speeches and the debate never ended. We have yet to vote on this bill because they are looking to get political mileage out of this issue.

I know that the carbon tax has become a sticky issue, politically speaking. It has been very polarizing. However, this bill would improve things in the fall for grain farmers. If any of them are watching us, I say to them that all we need to do is vote next week for the grain drying exemption to come into effect. It is not in effect at the moment. That is the end of my tangent. Obviously, when it comes to this recommendation, I was not among the majority. Nevertheless, we were pleased with the report as a whole and we adopted it.

I will now move on to recommendation 4. It recommends that the government review its labelling regulations. That is a great example. I will not have enough time to talk about all the recommendations since I have so much to say about each topic, but I will talk about the ones I have time to address.

Regarding labelling, Health Canada decided to protect citizens and help them be healthy. If a food contains fat or sugar, that will be generally indicated on the food, but the rest of the content of the food will not. That is a fine example of a policy that was adopted quickly to make the government look good, to give the appearance of being good and kind and of having protected the public.

For example, dried cranberries need a label because they have a very bitter taste, so they need added sugar. I am not saying that the package should not say that it contains sugar, but when people go to the grocery store and see that it contains too much sugar to be healthy, without seeing the rest, it takes away some of the nuance. Cranberries are very effective antioxidants. They have a whole bunch of health benefits.

I would like to return to this idea, if anyone on the government side is listening. We need to be smarter with our policies. Let us look at France, for example, which has adopted a “Nutri-Score” system, rather than just saying that a food has a lot of fat or a lot of sugar, which takes away all the nuance and means that a bunch of exemptions are needed. I have not mentioned it yet, but dairy products got an exemption. Ground meat got an exemption pretty quickly, because the same cut of non-ground meat would not be labelled, which is completely ridiculous. People figured that out fast. It took two weeks to get that exemption. I can say bravo for once, but that should happen more often.

France's “Nutri-Score” system assigns each food item a letter, either A, B, C, D or E. For foods like cranberries, instead of being assigned the letter E because the front-of-package label shows the word “sugar” in big letters, the product might be rated B or C, since it has other health benefits. Decisions have to be informed and carefully considered.

It is important to remember that labelling changes come at a high cost to the industry. The government says it wants to lower the cost of groceries, but the cost of changing the food labelling policy every two years is huge. For one thing, consider the packaging that will be thrown in the recycling bin. We need to think carefully. We need to ask what exactly it is that we want to change generally, among all the labelling features, and then make the changes once and only once, so that the industry can adjust. The industry needs time to adjust too.

Moving on to the report's fifth recommendation, everyone agrees on getting rid of plastics. No one disagrees. All we are saying is that we cannot ban PLU stickers, the small labels placed on fruit, with a snap of our fingers.

Science has begun to develop biodegradable labels. They exist. They are coming, but they are very expensive and are not widely available yet. We may lose suppliers based in foreign countries. They may stop providing us with bananas, for example, because the cost will become too high too quickly. Yes, let us make these changes, but let us be reasonable about the deadlines and then see what the alternatives are.

Plastic packaging for vegetables is probably the best example that I can give. Broccoli wrapped in plastic will last two, three or four times longer in the grocery store than broccoli that is not wrapped in plastic. Everyone agrees that we want to get rid of the plastic, but first we need to develop an alternative solution. Otherwise, we will put broccoli on the shelves and food waste will skyrocket. What is a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions? Food waste. I am talking about thinking things through. That is how we usually work at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

We talked about the nutrition north Canada program. The government provides subsidies to companies that supply food to remote areas. However, we are not sure that those subsidies are being put to good use. We put the message out there because food prices are atrocious in remote areas. It is crazy.

Should the formula be reviewed? Should the government support citizens directly instead? It is unclear whether that is a good idea, but we should look into how these subsidies are being used. Our job is not to increase a private company's profits. Our job is to ensure that citizens have access to affordable food.

To conclude, one of the major recommendations is the grocery code of conduct. It is an excellent example of what happens when we work constructively. The committee worked on this for a very long time. We put a lot of pressure on the companies. Two of them did not want to sign, but they finally did this summer. The code of conduct will be implemented. Now it will be important to monitor how it is being applied. The most important element is the dispute resolution mechanism for small suppliers.

I would now be happy to answer any questions my colleagues may have.

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

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to join the debate today on the concurrence of the 18th report of the Standing Committee of Agriculture and Agri-Food on food price inflation.

I find it very strange that the Liberal member would talk about tying up the House's time on things he thinks are not important. When I was in my riding of Regina—Lewvan and our communities all summer, one of the major topics was the price of food and how it is getting harder to make ends meet each day.

We know that taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up. It is time to have these discussions, and it is time for a carbon tax election. That is what Canadians want. Seventy per cent of Canadians think that the carbon tax should be axed. It is one of the major reasons costs are going up at our grocery stores.

We saw this in some of the comments made at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. As a member of the committee, I was able to partake in the meetings. Some of the comments especially focused on the carbon tax. One such comment was made by Mr. Ron Lemaire of the Canadian Produce Marketing Association. He reported that the greenhouse vegetable sector, for example, estimates that the carbon tax will have an annual cost on his operations of $22 million this year. This amount is projected to increase to as much as $100 million by 2030. What do members think that does to the price of vegetables in our grocery stores, if that is the cost being incurred by our vegetable growers across our country?

Another comment was made by Mr. Keith Currie of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. He noted that the carbon tax accounts for as much as 40% of energy bills in some agricultural sectors. He called for a time-limited and targeted exemption; he would like to see an exemption from the carbon tax.

Another thing that a lot of stakeholders talked about in our committee was the fact that they would love to see Bill C-234 passed, and that is the exemption from the carbon tax for heating barns for grain drying. This is something that our producers desperately need. Mr. Currie went on to say something about the mental health of our producers; the member from Saanich—Gulf Islands also talked about this. Can we imagine having to pay a bill that is ever-increasing and would eventually take millions of dollars out of our pockets? That is the pressure that our agriculture producers are facing.

One thing needing to be mentioned is that many members on the Conservative side come from family farms. The member who just spoke has family that has been in agriculture for generations. I grew up on a dairy and beef farm, and I have cousins who still ranch. These are not just random numbers. These are our family members and our constituents. That is why this is so important to the members on this side of the House, to the Conservative members of Parliament.

For a Liberal to say that this is just fluff and does not matter, that it is just a tactic, is actually quite insulting to the men and women who produce our food and put food on the table. The member should apologize for that comment.

I want to talk about the pressure that our men and women are facing in agriculture. What this brings to the forefront is that it is not just the carbon tax. As I hear all the time, it is also a tax on the tax. It is the GST being paid by our producers on top of the carbon tax. The PBO has done some reports on this, which say that $486 million in GST will be paid on the carbon tax. By 2030, $1 billion a year will be paid just in GST on the carbon tax. The carbon tax is going to blow a $30-billion to $40-billion hole in our economy, and the agriculture sector is going to account for the lion's share of that money. There is pressure.

My colleague said it well, and it is worth repeating: If we tax the farmer who produces the food, the trucker who buys the food and the stores that sell the food, it only stands to reason that we are going to tax each and every Canadian who goes to the store and buys the food. This is what as common sense would indicate.

That is the point we are trying to get at. We know that the sellout NDP members have voted for the carbon tax 24 times. Because they were in trouble in the Elmwood—Transcona by-election, the leader of the NDP had a come-to-Jesus moment and said, “No, we are not against the carbon tax.” Now he says that they want to vote against it.

Now we are going to see another flip-flop because the NDP eked out a win in one of its seven safest seats in Canada, where I think they lost 20 points. That flip-flop was strictly to play politics to try to fool Canadians, just like the ripping up of the supply and confidence agreement. Can members believe that? It is two flip-flops in two days. I am surprised the hon. NDP leader did not pull something. First he was for the government and then he was against the government, and on Wednesday he will be for the government again. It is hard to keep track. Now the NDP in B.C. is also against the carbon tax. It is unbelievable how many times people have changed their minds on the carbon tax over the last week in NDP land.

I have a great deal of respect for the men and women in our agriculture sector. They do the hard work of feeding Canadians and feeding the world. One thing we hear from some of the Liberal members on the agriculture committee is that we need to do more. Why do some of the Liberal and NDP members on this committee not give the agriculture sector credit for what it has done so well already? Saskatchewan, which has done so much to create environmental sustainability in the agriculture sector, uses rotational grazing for cattle and crop rotation, with different crops taking out different nutrients from the soil. Western Canada pioneered that. We have also done great work when it comes to zero tillage and straight head combining, where there is less machinery on the field.

There have been so many innovations that we should be proud of as the Canadians who represent the men and women in the agriculture sector, and we should take them to the world. Imagine exporting our great agricultural practices to other countries around the world so they catch up. That would lower world emissions. If we want to tackle environmental sustainability, we should talk about some of the good things we are doing on the world stage instead of always acting like we should be embarrassed by our agriculture and energy sectors.

We know that right now we do not have any champions for agriculture in the current government. We have talked about this many times in Saskatchewan, where agriculture is still the backbone of the economy. Why is it that every time Liberals come into government, their agriculture minister sits at the kids' table?

We know that one of the biggest problems with the government's ag policy is that it is being made in the health and environment departments, not in the agriculture department. It is being made by people who have never been on a farm. That is why we see continuous increases, whether it is in red tape, taxes or policies, like wanting to reduce fertilizer use by 35%. Do members know how much that is going to lower yields for our producers? Talk about putting more mental strain on them. We are hand-tying them on what they do best by telling them what they can and cannot put on their fields. That is reminiscent of socialist Russia, which I think some members in the Liberals would enjoy seeing. The activist Minister of Environment has said that he is a proud socialist. He would love to tell agriculture producers what they should and should not be doing with their own land.

To address how we can lower food prices immediately, we can axe the tax and make sure no one is paying a tax on a tax by taking GST off the carbon tax. We can allow our producers to use technology and the great practices of farming, not tie their hands by telling them how much fertilizer to put on their fields. First and foremost, what we need is a common-sense Conservative government that will not have an ag minister sitting at the kids' table and that will bring policy forward that helps instead of hurts our producers. That is what the Conservatives will deliver to Canadians when we have the carbon tax election that 70% of Canadians want.

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

Madam Speaker, I have been in this place now for five years and had the honour of representing Lambton—Kent—Middlesex and farmers in my riding and across this country.

It is a bit rich for the NDP to say that Conservatives do not care about food prices. From day one in this Parliament, we have said that we need to get rid of taxes, bring taxes down for farmers and axe the carbon tax so that farmers can have a reprieve. Especially, if we can pass Bill C-234 unamended, that will help our farmers. I do not understand why the member will not just stand with us, help pass Bill C-234 and give farmers a reprieve from the carbon tax now.

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

Madam Speaker, I move that the 18th report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food be concurred in.

Today, we are here to talk about food prices and food price volatility.

It is no secret that the cost of food has risen dramatically. We are seeing record numbers of people visiting food banks. In fact, in Ontario, one million people used a food bank last year. Food bank use since 2019 has gone up 135%. This has never happened in my lifetime. In the past three years, rent and groceries are up 40%. Canadians are spending 43% of their income on tax. That is more than housing, food and clothing combined.

It is easy to look at food prices in the grocery store and blame the big grocers for the high cost of food, but blaming them does not get to the root cause of the problem and why food has become so expensive. The bottom line is that the NDP-Liberal government's policies and regulations are driving up the cost of food and the cost for farmers to produce food.

We have heard this time and time again, and I am not afraid to say it again, and I will say it as many times as I need to, that the Conservatives will axe the tax. However, in the meantime, we need to pass Bill C-234, unamended, and give farmers a reprieve from the carbon tax.

I will give members an idea of why the carbon tax impacts the cost of food so much.

If we look at the supply chain from start to finish, every single step along that supply chain is facing increased costs, which can be related directly back to the carbon tax. Sometimes they are paying multiple times in carbon tax. For instance, farmers have to pay for fertilizer, and we are getting taxed right now on fertilizer. How does the fertilizer get from the fertilizer company to the field? It is trucked. We use trucks for everything in the country in order to get things from wherever it needs to be, from the farm or back to the field or from the field back to the farm. When we increase the cost of fuel for these trucks, which are not exempt from the carbon tax or from any fuel taxes for that matter, it is absolutely going to increase the cost of the production.

However, we should not believe everything the Liberals tell us, or when we hear that farmers are exempt from taxes on their farm fuel. There is a slight bit of truth to that, but for the most part, on modern farms today, we are not using just tractors anymore. Yes, tractors are exempt and any equipment that does not use a roadway is exempt. However, from experience on my own farm, we use transport trucks to get the potatoes from the field back to the farm to the packing house.

If we look at the prairies, farmers have to truck grain from the field back to the farm to put it in the bins for storage. What is the most economical way to get products from the field back to the farm for storage? It is using big transport trucks and taking less loads from the field back to the farm. It saves on fuel, first, and it save on costs. However, when those trucks are not exempt from the carbon tax, or any taxes for that matter, it increases the cost for doing business for farmers.

What is the end result of that? Farmers cannot eat up all those costs. It comes off their bottom line. It comes off what they would have as extra income to invest back into their farming operations. Of course, those costs are going to get passed on to the next part in the chain, whether that is direct to the consumer or direct to a wholesaler. In my instance, I have to increase my costs. When my costs go up, I have to recoup those costs as I cannot afford to eat them. At the end of the day, consumers and Canadians at the grocery store are going to pay more because of the carbon tax.

If folks are watching and they are from a city, they may not know where their food comes from. Out on the prairies, the fields can be 10 to 80 kilometres away from the home farm. For instance, some of our farms are 80 to 100 kilometres away from the home farm. We have no choice but to truck the goods from those fields back to the farm. Even if a farm is 10 kilometres away from the home farm, to go 10 times a day back and forth is 100 kilometres driven. Imagine how much fuel is being consumed on just transporting food from point A to point B at the farm gate, and I am not talking beyond the farm gate here. Therefore, the cost of that carbon tax on truckers is immense, and it is immense for the farmers.

If we tax the farmer who grows the food and tax the trucker who ships the food, Canadians are the ones who are going to pay more for the food. It is common sense.

One of the other policies the NDP-Liberal government has put forward that will greatly impact the cost of food is its ban on plastics for fresh produce. I have talked about this in the House before, but it is worth talking about again because this would have such a profound impact on the fresh food we eat. Two-thirds of the produce Canadians eat is imported from other countries, and if we ban plastic on produce, we will see a 34% increase in the cost of fresh produce in this country, on top of what we are already seeing as high costs for food.

It will also reduce the availability of fresh produce to Canadians by over 50%. Members can imagine 50% less choice in the grocery store for Canadians. It will cost the industry $5.6 billion. On top of this, it will have a 50% increase in greenhouse gases on the produce supply chain because of rotting produce. It is also going to increase CO2 emissions from the rotting produce.

I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with the member for Regina—Lewvan today.

When we talk about the 50% increase in greenhouse gases from rotting produce, that does not include the increased transportation costs to truck more food and have more trucks on the road going to grocery stores because we are going to need more food. It is going to increase the health care costs by over $1 billion per year.

Back in my riding and across the country, when I have talked to folks, I have talked to moms who have told me they have no choice but to cut back on the food they are buying for their families. They have to find somewhere to slash their budgets. I talked to one mom in particular who told me she could not afford to buy any out-of-season produce anymore. She is only be able to afford what is on sale at the grocery store for produce and will have to buy bigger quantities. Her kids will have to go without fresh food because she cannot afford it anymore. That is terrible. We must think of the increased cost to our health this is going to have when parents cannot afford to buy nutritious food for their children.

Another factor we need to take into account when considering why our prices are going to go up is the fact that the majority of Canadians live in rural and remote communities. I have had the privilege and honour, for the last five years, of representing Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, which is a completely rural community. I have travelled to rural communities across this country, including up into the north, into Whitehorse and Yukon, and there is a real issue when it comes to food insecurity and the price of food. If we see trucking costs go up, and we see less production and less availability of fresh produce, how are these people, who live in rural remote communities, going to be able to access nutritious food? They are going to have a hard time.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimates that the cost of this plastics ban will add $1.9 billion in customer costs. Nationwide, we stand to lose 60,000 jobs. We also hear that insurance rates are up due to vehicle thefts, break-ins and damages, and farmers have to pay higher insurance rates because of this. Vehicle insurance rates in Canada are up over 6% year over year. I have had some constituents tell me their insurance rates have doubled in some areas.

If we look at the whole supply chain and all the things farmers have to do to run their business, and if the costs are up everywhere, of course food costs are going to be up. Farmers have no choice but to pass these costs on down the line, and then every step along the supply chain has price increases and they need to be passed on. The result is Canadians having to pay more for food from the store.

Here is another piece of common sense: no farms equals no food. Government red tape is up. Insurance costs are up. Heating costs are up. Grain drying costs are up. Taxes are up. Crime is up. Time is up. Conservatives will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime, and we will bring down food prices for Canadians.

National Strategy to Reduce Food Waste and Combat Food Insecurity

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, I apologize to the interpreters for that.

The Liberals would have the solution if they would just listen to common-sense Conservatives and axe the carbon tax, which is driving up costs for farmers, truckers, manufacturers, food processors and retailers. This drives up the cost of food on the grocery store shelf, which Canadians are struggling every single day to pay for.

I appreciate the comments from my Liberal colleague from Winnipeg North saying how important it is for Canadians to donate and volunteer at food banks. In fact, it has gotten so bad that the member for Kingston and the Islands had to donate $1,000 to a local food bank. If only more Liberals were following his lead and donating to food banks. Food banks would not be facing record numbers, and in many cases, we have food banks saying that they cannot meet the demand, if Canadians were not facing an affordability crisis as a result of the Liberal government.

Let us take a look at some of the other programs that the Liberals have brought forward that are actually making the situation worse. The Liberals have also talked about a P2 plastics ban on front-of-pack labelling. Again, this sounds like something that would be positive but, yet again, surprise, surprise, the Liberals have not done any consultation to understand the consequences of these types of policies. An in-depth report by Deloitte on the Liberals' P2 plastic ban policy said that the impact on food prices would be profound. I will go over the list that came from the Deloitte study.

This would increase the cost of fresh produce by 35%, reduce the actual availability of fresh produce in Canada by 50%, cost the industry $5.6 billion, increase fresh produce waste by 50% and increase health care costs by more than a billion dollars as a result of lower fresh produce consumption.

The front-of-pack labelling issue, which the Liberals are moving ahead with, will cost the industry $8 billion, as companies are having to switch over and change all of their label manufacturing processes. The Americans have also said that this is a trade issue and they will not be importing products into Canada, which would again reduce access to these fresh products. What will happen? We will drive up food prices yet again.

As Conservatives, we have offered solutions to these problems. For example, Bill C-234 would remove the carbon tax from the natural gas and propane farmers use for drying grain and for the heating and cooling of barns and greenhouses. This would save farmers more than a billion dollars this year. That is not including when the carbon tax is increased on April 1. What happens when we reduce costs and input costs for farmers and truckers? It reduces the food costs on the grocery store shelves. Once again, the Liberals have opposed that legislation and, in fact, they instructed their senators in the Senate to gut that private member's bill. We know that, unanimously, every single farm stakeholder group in this country supports Bill C-234 to make farming and food more affordable.

We have brought forward a number of alternatives to try to address the affordable food issue. Two years ago, the Liberals imposed a self-imposed potato export ban on Prince Edward Island. In fact, not only did they block farmers in P.E.I. from exporting fresh and seed potatoes, the Liberals paid $24 million to destroy 300 million pounds of fresh potatoes.

We had farmers from Prince Edward Island drive to Ottawa, and they were handing out five-pound bags of free potatoes to everybody they could find on Wellington Street. This was before the Liberals were very scared of truck drivers coming up to Ottawa. In fact, they were helping feed Ottawa residents. This continues to be the story of the Liberals professing to want to solve problems that they themselves have actually caused.

While I appreciate the sentiment of my Liberal colleague in bringing something forward that the Liberal government has done multiple times as part of its mandate but with no results whatsoever, the facts are clear: When the Liberals get involved, they make matters worse. That is what we are hearing from Canadians, who are struggling with food insecurity in record numbers. When one-quarter of the Canadian population does not know where their next meal is coming from, we need to let that sink in.

Liberal policy has made Canada into a developing country where Canadians are struggling to feed themselves. We need to come up with real solutions, and a Conservative government, under the guidance of the member for Carleton, will ensure that Canadians can afford to put food on the table and feed their families.

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there were some very important recommendations in this report about the horticulture sector, but there were some things that were missing. Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit Carleton Mushroom Farms, not far from Ottawa, and it spent $170,000 in carbon tax last year alone. We know that 44% of produce growers are selling at a loss.

One recommendation that was removed from this report was the importance of approving Bill C-234 unamended because the amendment would remove the carbon tax carve-out for greenhouses and mushroom farms, which would cost them more than $300 million by 2030.

Main Estimates 2024-25

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank and congratulate my colleague for his excellent speech and his comments that are always appropriate. We sit together at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, and I realized that he shared my view on this budget: There is almost nothing in it for agriculture. If we want people to be fed, we might want to take care of that.

Bill C‑234 came back to the House because it was amended. In fact, it was gutted of all substance by the Senate. My colleague from Foothills proposed an amendment to restore the bill to its original form. I would like to know if my colleague would be in favour of the amendment proposed by my colleague from Foothills for Bill C‑234 to revert to its original form. We must not forget that heating buildings is just as important as drying grain.

Opposition Motion—Government's Economic Analysis on Carbon Pricing

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my hon. colleague from Pierre‑Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, who set the bar high, as usual. When we, the members of the Bloc Québécois, share our speaking time with each other, we always want to go first because we are all good and that puts pressure on the next person. I will try to make sure my speech is as good as my colleague's.

Today's motion is indeed repetitive, as my colleague mentioned, but it is quite simple. It calls for information. It is too bad that I cannot address the minister directly to ask him the question. I hope he will ask me or that he will want to participate in the exchange, but the first question that I will raise in the House is the following. Why did it take this motion for the document to be released? That bothers me tremendously.

What I find the most difficult about politics is not the long hours, the travel or the documenting work. It is working with so many elected officials who are not always working for the common good or who do not always seem to be doing so. There is a lot of partisanship in political parties in general. One might wonder why the Liberal Party did not make this study public. Is it because it confused its electoral interests with the interests of the public? I am throwing that question out there because it is important and because we have a responsibility here. However, not everyone lives up to that responsibility.

Today is another Conservative opposition day on the carbon tax where we are hearing nonsense. Earlier, a member even referred to the line of the report that gives the projected impact the federal carbon tax would have in 2030, if it applied in Quebec. The cost would be $5 billion. That number was used in question period today and members said that Quebec was losing $5 billion every year. What is that if not a cheap populist approach? I would invite parliamentarians to elevate the debate and show some discipline.

They got the documents. Now, they want something else, they want the notes and the emails. What will they then do with those? That question deserves some thought, considering how the tables obtained today were used. In very short order, the information in the documents was cherry picked rather than subjected to serious analysis. What would happen with the emails and briefing notes? It is a worthwhile question.

I want to reassure everyone, however, that the Bloc Québécois has always supported transparency, and that we are not afraid of information. We want to know how measures like the federal carbon tax will affect the environment, even though the carbon tax does not apply in Quebec. We know that we are here, in the federal Parliament and that we are called upon to deal with things happening in the other provinces now and then. That is fine. We have to know the repercussions.

However, we should also find out how much it costs not having measures in place. How much does insurance cost? In recent years, the cost of insurance has risen by tens of billions of dollars. There have been increases of over $30 billion. Do the claims for natural disasters not cost anything? I did not realize that. The floods and torrential rains that affected our farming operations, did that not cost anything?

Many businesses are on the verge of bankruptcy. This week I received a delegation of produce growers. According to what these Quebec strawberry and raspberry producers were telling me, dozens of members have announced that they will not be farming this year, because they lost too much last year and the government programs are not working.

They are now telling themselves that climate change is not going to stop, because there is a group of real winners promising to abolish the measures that can help mitigate climate change. It is rather astonishing. That same group of winners actually includes a decent number of elected representatives in Quebec, who agree to speak 9.5 times out of 10 on measures that do not apply to their constituents. That is what amazes me the most.

For a year I have been watching members from Quebec rise in the House and get all worked up over the big bad federal government, over the carbon tax. They say that our farmers are suffering. That does not apply in Quebec. Are they not supposed to be working for their constituents? I keep asking questions. I do nothing but ask questions.

To inform my Conservative colleague who is rising while I am in the middle of making a speech and who seems to be unaware, Quebec is covered by a carbon pricing system called the carbon exchange in association with California. This represents a much bigger market than Canada can offer, by the way. These measures are very effective. What we are seeing in Quebec is that having those measures ends up being less expensive for people and is having an impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Maybe the people in the other provinces who are unhappy with the big bad federal carbon tax should look at what Quebec has put in place, as they are doing on child care and as they want to do on dental care and on pharmacare. Let us look at what Quebec has been doing since 2014. We are still ahead on this. Let us look at what Quebec has done and how this has affected Quebeckers. Maybe some will wish they got on board at the time, but no, because these people want pollution to be free.

I have a lot to say. I am going to run out of time again. However, I want to raise one important point today, concerning the much-touted Bill C‑234. We, the Bloc Québécois, agreed to support this bill even though it did not apply in Quebec. We did so because we thought it seemed reasonable to give people who produce food credits for grain drying and for certain buildings. The bill came back from the Senate in early January. My first speech in 2024 was about Bill C‑234. It had come back with amendments. Instead of returning it to the Senate and having it come back or not come back, or leaving it stuck there without making any progress, we thought that since it had something to offer grain farmers, that it could give them the credit for drying grain, we should support it. I understand the Conservatives' reaction. They initially said no because they wanted the bill to stay in its original form. That is fine; it is part of the debate. However, once the debate ends, voting has to follow.

Now, I am going to talk about hypocrisy. It is June. We are coming up to the summer adjournment and we still have not voted on Bill C-234. As I said earlier, the first speech that I gave in early January was about this bill. Sometimes bills stall in the Senate, but that is normally not the case in the House of Commons. How does someone stall a bill? It is easy. Every time the government wants to put it back on the agenda, people keep rising to fill the time so that we cannot finish the debate and can never vote on the bill. One has to wonder why the Conservatives would want to avoid voting on their own bill. It is because they are getting political mileage out of it. They talk about the bill at least 12 times a day. If we do not vote on the bill, then they can call the government incompetent, unfair and mean. However, they could vote on the bill now and give grain farmers the credit next fall.

I hope there are farmers listening, and I hope they realize that their Conservative MPs are working in the interest of getting themselves elected, not in the interest of our farmers. That really irks me. It grates on me. It gets under my skin when MPs put their energy into scoring political points, posting clips on social media and launching fundraising campaigns. They are raising money. The people who donate that money do not have all the information. I just gave them all the information. The people who are up in arms about the carbon tax are currently blocking Bill C‑234. So much for integrity. So much for noble intentions to help our farmers.

Earlier, I heard a member say that this is why grocery prices have gone up. We know there are all kinds of reasons for that. As my colleagues said earlier, the impact on Quebec is minimal. Yes, inflation is high, and there are other reasons for that. The member stands to answer questions, and he says the answer is no, it is the carbon tax. He can say that a dozen times, but that will never make it true. I would like MPs to be a little more diligent. Let us get serious about working for the common good. I think that would be a good thing.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to take to my feet today and talk about the common-sense Conservative motion to release the secret report, which the environment minister had the PBO hide from Canadians, and to reveal the truth to Canadians.

Before I get to the substance of my presentation, there are two things I want to say.

First and foremost, this will be the last time I have a chance to be on my feet and to wish a Happy Father's Day to fathers across Canada, which is coming this Sunday. My wish for Father's Day is that the Oilers get two wins. I will put on record that it was the first time an NDP member has ever clapped for anything I have said in the House.

Second, I will be splitting my time with the member for Foothills. I am looking forward to hearing his presentation later in this debate.

It has come to light that the environment minister has been gagging the PBO and has not been allowing him to let Canadians see the full effect of what the carbon tax has been doing to our economy. Hurriedly this morning, the Liberals were forced to release some, but not all, of the report. That is why this motion is so salient today, because we would like to see the full, unredacted report released so that Canadians know how much the job-killing carbon tax is crippling our economy. The report states that $30.5 billion is going to be put at risk in our economy because of this carbon tax when it is fully implemented. We do not have to look very far to see the results of what is going to continue to happen.

This all came to light because of some very good work done at the finance committee by one of my colleagues. The PBO stated, “it doesn't change the overall conclusion...as I pointed out...our numbers have been out there since 2022. In that time...the government...has not published anything regarding the economic impact of the carbon tax.” He went on to say, “We know...that the government has these numbers on the economic impact.... They have not published anything....”

Our colleague went on to ask, “you understood that the government had economic analysis on the carbon tax that it has not released. Are you saying that the government has not been transparent with the analysis it has?”

The PBO stated, “I mentioned that the government has economic analysis on the impact of the carbon tax itself and the OBPS.... We've seen that—staff in my office—but we've been told explicitly not to disclose it or reference it.”

Our colleague said to the PBO, “The government has given you their analysis, but they have put a gag on you, basically, saying you can't talk about it.”

The Parliamentary Budget Officer responded, “That is my understanding.”

This revelation is something that should be quite shocking to Canadians. We know that the Liberal government has had a disregard for the rule of law. We saw it bring in the Emergencies Act. It had a disregard for the rights of Canadians when it came to trying to divide us based on a personal health choice. We know that the radical environment minister is an eco-terrorist and has no respect for the law, because he was actually arrested climbing a tower. Therefore, to have such little respect for the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer is not out of character for the members of the government, who really believe, as they are so out of touch, that they can do whatever they want and that Canadians should just go along with it.

Now, we are talking about the long-term damaging effects to our economy. We know that our GDP continues to decrease and that it is one of the lowest in the G7. That is a direct result of the radical fiscal policies, and one might say the wacko policies, that the NDP-Liberal costly coalition has forced on Canadians.

I had the honour to attend the 111th AGM of the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association on Monday. We had conversations about this, constantly, because it is getting harder for ranchers and for farmers to try to make ends meet. We know the PBO has also said that by 2030, when the carbon tax is fully implemented, it is going to take $1 billion out of the ag sector alone. It is going to cost the average farm about $170,000 a year. Who can eat that kind of a tax increase? It is going to be harder for farm families to make ends meet and to put food on the table, because if we tax the farmer who grows the food and tax the trucker who trucks the food, then we tax all Canadians who buy the food.

I really think it is important that we look at how the Liberals have continued to put terrible policies in place that are affecting our farmers. The fertilizer reduction tariff is making it harder for farmers to grow food, as is the carbon tax. We did have a common-sense Conservative bill, Bill C-234, that was going to actually lessen the weight of the crushing carbon tax on our Canadian farmers. The Senate sent it back and gutted the bill, and now the Liberals and New Democrats will not let us get this bill passed. There are things we can do, and have tried to do, to ensure that our farmers are able to be better off, but that is just not something the current government is focused on, trying to help ranchers, farmers and producers across the country.

When it comes to the hidden report that Canadians were not allowed to see, I appreciate the member for Whitby, who is famous for saying that Canadians will go through pain because of the carbon tax. He got that part right. Canadians have felt pain all over this country, as we see millions lined up at food banks. That is the type of pain the member for Whitby was talking about. However, he is also the one who actually brought up the hidden report in the first place at committee. I think it is very interesting that we have not heard him speak on this motion, as of yet, but I would love to hear some of the comments that he might have on a $30.5-billion hit to our economy.

We are now saying that the environment minister is unfit to have his job. He should resign or the Prime Minister should fire him, because he purposely misled Canadians on the Liberals' flagship tax policy. I think it is time that he does the right thing and that he resigns from his position as the environment minister. The Prime Minister does not show leadership on this front. We all know that he is flailing in the polls, but it is time for him to actually show some leadership, which he has not done in nine long years, and get rid of the environment minister, who is making it harder for Canadians to make ends meet.

When it comes down to it, $30.5 billion from this crippling carbon tax is going to hurt our Canadian economy, and Canadians everywhere will be out about $1,800 a year, for every Canadian family. That is unconscionable, and it should stop.