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

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak again on a very important topic: carbon tax and the policies that affect agriculture.

The carbon tax is a huge one. The capital gains tax was supposedly for some kind of elite businesses, but it really does affect businesses such as family farms. The capital gains tax is another one that is a very significant challenge. It goes along with the GST tax break, which the Liberals found is not getting them any bump because it is not one that works either.

However, there is some information on the carbon tax. The average 5,000-acre farm in Canada is paying about $150,000 every single year in carbon taxes. For an irrigation company, that multiplies at least to another $100,000. I know that my colleague will suggest other forms of energy, but natural gas and propane, and natural gas in particular, create power, and this is what is used in our part of the world.

For greenhouses, and I have significant ones in my riding for tomatoes, green peppers, lettuce and strawberries, they are facing huge costs, at $22 million a year in carbon taxes. By 2030, it will be $82 million to $100 million, which is a huge cost on greenhouse produce in our country. We have 44% of fresh fruit and vegetable growers already telling us that they are selling at a loss, and their statements show it. We have 77% who cannot cover their production costs, and we have 77% of produce growers in Canada close to going under.

Alberta farmers paid $17 million in carbon tax last year just on natural gas and propane to dry their grain and to heat and cool their barns. Bill C-234 would have eliminated the carbon tax on natural gas and propane, saving farmers that billion a year, but the senators gutted that bill.

However, we have ways that we can work on this. Some people do not get that we have institutions. This is from the president of the University of Alberta. He said:

...we understand energy, and we understand innovation. After more than a century of energy breakthroughs, we have learned the key to success: when you bring together the right people, you push the boundaries of innovation.

...This Alberta-based project brings together academia, industry, and government to advance the solutions that will reduce carbon dioxide emissions and diversify the economy.

We have ways that we can work with the energy sector and work with emissions. We have great academic institutions, like the University of Alberta, who can bring people together to work on this.

However, there are some other costs that are really interesting. At the ag committee recently, CN Rail representatives were there and they were asked about the carbon tax. For Saskatchewan, CN said that the carbon tax bill was $36 million just for transporting produce out of Saskatchewan, and then we can multiply that by Alberta and Manitoba. They were asked whether CN pays the carbon tax, and they said, of course not; we just download it to the farmers. This is the problem, which is that the carbon tax will be downloaded.

These are not rebate operations. There is no rebate for these large farm operations. They are the ones who do a great job of producing great food, food security produced in Canada, but they are being taxed severely. This is the challenge with the carbon tax, and it needs to be stopped.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

Let me state the facts. The Bloc supports an amended Bill C-234, which has been neutered. The Bloc supported the bill as it was when it went to the Senate. The Senate neutered it, taking away literally 90% of the benefit of that bill. The Bloc does not support an unamended Bill C-234, which is what our Canadian farmers want. There is no sense passing Bill C-234 as it is amended because it does not benefit Canadian farmers.

What the member is saying is that the Bloc supports basically a nothing bill. That is not what Conservatives are fighting for. We are fighting for our farmers and ranchers right across this country, who want a break in the carbon tax on natural gas and propane.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to correct the record. In his speech, my colleague said that the Bloc Québécois is against farmers because we oppose Bill C‑234.

Let us review the facts. The bill was studied in the Senate, which proposed an amendment. To speed up the process, we are prepared to accept the amendment and vote on the bill as is. That was what our agriculture critic said last January. However, every time Bill C‑234 has come before the House, the Conservatives have filibustered it, with speakers prattling on endlessly to prevent it from ever going to a vote. They are the ones holding up the bill.

Why are they doing this to farmers?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, with the holiday season upon us, I just want to take a moment to wish my constituents in Foothills a very merry Christmas. Certainly, all of us in the House understand that our communities are bustling with Christmas shopping, Christmas carols, holiday lights and the celebration of friends and family.

At this time of year, I understand the hard work that our volunteers and our community organizers are doing with random acts of kindness that are knitting our communities together. I just want to take a moment to thank each and every one of them for all the work they are doing during this holiday season, making the communities what we know they are. They are showing us what Christmas is all about.

As proud as I am of my constituency of Foothills, unfortunately, the members on the other side of the House are going to be on Santa's naughty list, with the number of Liberal scandals, schemes, breaches of ethics and conflicts of interest that they have had over their past nine years in government.

It seems as though, while many Canadian parents are struggling to put food on the table or put gifts under the Christmas tree for their kids, the Liberal members, insiders and bagmen are the ones who are making off with the Christmas spirit this holiday season. Hard-working Canadians are seeing their paycheques eroded by out-of-control spending, higher taxes, higher inflation and scandal after scam, with the arrive scam, the WE scandal and SNC-Lavalin. Even among their members, the former minister, the member for Edmonton Centre, is getting caught in his own scandals, one after another. He tried to take advantage of his position as a cabinet minister to enrich his own company.

It seems that, with one hand, the Liberals are taking every scrap and every penny from the Canadian taxpayer, while with the other, they are enriching their friends and doling out taxpayer money to their friends, contractors and insiders.

Today, we are speaking about one specific scandal. I wish I could say it was just the latest scandal, but there have been more since this first came to light at the committee stage. This scandal in particular is egregious, not only because of the price tag, that this is a misuse of perhaps more than 400 million taxpayer dollars, but also because of the scale, in that it has more than 180 documented conflicts of interest. That is one every second day of the year.

Members of the board of directors, who were appointed by the member for Papineau, the Prime Minister, were taking SDTC money that was meant to go to innovation and projects as part of a climate change initiative. The green slush fund was being funnelled to members of the board of directors, who were themselves voting to have money go to their own companies or companies they represented.

I think that the scale of this kind of insider trading, for lack of a better description, is what frustrates so many Canadians and, certainly, members of the official opposition. This is not just government money. The Prime Minister loves to say that the Liberals are investing in Canadians, that they are investing in these projects. He is investing with Canadian taxpayers' hard-earned dollars. Actually, he used to do that. He is now just having to borrow because he has blown through whatever the taxpayer has to provide.

Those hard-earned dollars that the taxpayers are giving to the government have been directly funnelled into the hands of Liberal-appointed board members and the companies they represent. Aside from the fact that this money was going to Liberal insiders and Liberal friends, the majority of projects that were approved did not even qualify for the funding from this program. They were illegitimate, yet the Liberal-appointed board members found ways to bend the rules, circumnavigate procedure and ensure that they were enriching their own companies and lining their own pockets. It is no wonder that the level of trust from Canadians in the political structure and the Liberal-NDP government is at an all-time low. The polls certainly show that the most recent two-month tax trick and $250 cheques are not what Canadians are buying.

The list of promises that the Prime Minister has broken would probably make Santa's naughty list blush. It seems to happen over and over again. I would just like to go over a couple. He promised that there would only be a few teeny-weeny deficits in his first three years as Prime Minister. After three years, he would balance the budget. He promised electoral reform. He promised to reduce taxes on the middle class. He promised to build more affordable housing. He broke every single one of those promises.

In retrospect, one of the promises the Prime Minister made in the 2015 election, and what he continued to say after he was elected Prime Minister, is one I would find almost hilarious if it was not so painful. In the 2015 election, he promised Canadians he would have the most open and transparent government in Canadian history. That statement now, in retrospect, is laughable. He is anything but transparent and open.

In fact, this is the second time the Prime Minister has ignored the will of the House and a ruling by the Speaker of the House to table documents in the House of Commons. The first time, he actually took the Speaker to court. He prorogued Parliament and then called a pandemic election that no Canadian wanted just to hide the level of his scandal. He was trying to hide documents from the Winnipeg lab scandal from being tabled in the House of Commons. If at first one succeeds, I guess try and try again. Those documents were never tabled in the House of Commons because an election was called.

The Prime Minister is trying to do the same thing here with the green slush fund documents that the Speaker of the House has ruled must be tabled in the House of Commons because Canadians have a right to know how their money is being spent. I would say Canadians want their money back. They want that $400 million to go back to the government and spent on things that will benefit Canadians.

Not long ago, the Prime Minister also promised, with the finance minister, in the most recent budget, that the deficit would not go over $40 billion. In question period, almost every day for the last two weeks, members of the official opposition have been asking the Prime Minister and the finance minister if they will stick to that $40-billion guardrail.

I would argue that a $40-billion deficit is still outrageous, but we are asking, if the government is not going to stick to that guardrail, what the size of the deficit will be. Is the government going to stick to that self-imposed guardrail, or is it driving Canadians off a fiscal cliff? I think Canadians deserve to know that. I think it is pretty clear, by the government members' unwillingness to answer that question, that this is going to be yet another promise broken.

The Liberals have blasted through that $40-billion debt promise. We do not know what will be announced on Monday. The Liberals will try to spin this as a win. They will fudge numbers and come up with great phrases like debt-to-GDP ratio, or that they are sticking within this window, but Canadians feel it. They feel it every single day when they buy groceries, put gas in their cars, or are looking to renew their mortgages or heat their homes. They understand that life is not as good as the Liberals will profess.

In fact, we are seeing these levels of scandal and mismanagement, when it comes to Canadian taxpayer money, continue to pop up almost on a daily basis. We have learned from the Auditor General that the Liberals' CEBA program is yet another billion-dollar boondoggle. In fact, $3.5 billion of taxpayers' money was paid to more than 77,000 recipients who did not meet the eligibility requirements. That means about 10% of the total 900,000 loan recipients were ineligible for the money they received. We are asking the government if it has a plan to get the taxpayers' money back. Thus far, we have not heard a single plan to accomplish that.

On top of that, the Liberals gave a non-competitive contract to Accenture. Accenture was allowed to lead the procurement process, which led to Accenture receiving $313 million, or 92% of the total value of the contracts awarded to Accenture to deliver the CEBA program. Even worse, it was administering this program from Brazil, despite telling the government it was going to be using Canadian experts and Canadian labour. That did not happen.

It is frustrating how the Liberal government is trying so hard to block the tabling of these documents that they are willing to seize their own Parliament. For all intents and purposes, they have a majority government. The NDP has made that very clear every day. They should be able to control the calendar of the House of Commons. While the government says that the Conservatives are holding everything up, the government has a majority. It can make sure that the House of Commons works as it should, but it is refusing to table these documents.

In the meantime, Canadians are lined up at food banks in record numbers. While the NDP-Liberal government is lining the pockets of Liberal friends and insiders, a record-shattering number of Canadians are now being forced to access food banks. We have said this ad nauseam: When they increase taxes for the trucker who moves the food, they increase taxes for processors who manufacture the food, they increase taxes for retailers who sell the food and they increase taxes for farmers who grow the food, do members know what happens? They increase the cost of food every single day at the grocery store, making it that much more difficult for Canadians to afford it.

One aspect of that is the fact that, once again, the Liberal-NDP government has voted to quadruple the carbon tax, which will cost Canadian farmers more than a billion dollars a year. An average 5,000-acre farm will be paying $150,000 every single year just in carbon taxes. How is that going to ensure that family farms are economically viable, let alone environmentally sustainable?

I am going to go off some numbers of the impact that the carbon tax is having on Canadian food production. I think it is very important that we talk about that term. This impacts not only farm families but also Canadian food production and food security. For greenhouse operators alone, this is costing $22 million a year. By 2030, it will cost between $82 and $100 million.

Nearly one in five farms in Quebec are unable to manage their debt because of rising transportation costs and high interest rates caused by the carbon tax and inflationary spending. This is leaving them unable to compete on the domestic and international markets. We have 44% of fresh fruit and vegetable growers already selling at a loss, and 77% of those cannot cover their production costs. We have 77% of produce growers in Canada on the brink of bankruptcy.

Alberta farmers paid $17 million in carbon taxes last year just on natural gas and propane to dry their grain, and to heat and cool their barns. On April 1, when the carbon tax increases by 23%, that number will go to $20 million a year. By 2030, that will be $210 million just for Alberta farmers.

Last year, Saskatchewan farmers paid more than $36 million in carbon taxes just to ship their grain by rail. That is not every other cost. That is not the cost of natural gas and propane to dry their grain, heat and cool their barns or manage their greenhouses. This is just the carbon tax bill that is passed on to them by CN and CPKC rail. Next year, when that carbon tax goes up 23%, that number will be $57 million.

The Liberal member for Kings—Hants, the chair of the agriculture committee, was stunned when he asked the representatives of the rail lines at committee last week if they were passing on the entire cost of the carbon tax to grain elevators and farmers. Their answer was that, yes, of course they were. Is that member serious? Did he think the rail lines were going to absorb the cost of the carbon tax, that they were not going to pass that on to the farmers and the grain elevators? Why would they pay that?

Every day, the Liberals cannot believe that the carbon tax is costing farmers money. They do not qualify for the rebates. They do not qualify for the Canadian entrepreneurs' rebate because the vast majority of them are incorporated. This is exactly the consequence of creating bad policy without actually talking to producers. The government could have done so much for Canadian farmers when we pointed out the mistakes in its policy, such as the original legislation on the price on pollution.

We brought forward Bill C-234, which would have eliminated the carbon tax on natural gas and propane, saving farmers that $1 billion a year. However, Liberal-appointed senators and now, unfortunately, the Bloc, who at one time used to stand for rural Canada, rural Quebeckers and Quebec farmers, have now withdrawn their support of Bill C-234, which Liberal-appointed senators gutted in the Senate, eliminating 90% of the benefits of Bill C-234. Every single agriculture stakeholder supports Bill C-234. Whether cattle, grain or supply management sectors, all of them support Bill C-234, except the Liberal government and now, unfortunately, the Bloc, who have turned their back on rural Quebec farmers. All of this was just to save the Prime Minister's carbon tax and perhaps to continue to prop up the Liberal government.

It is frustrating. Certainly, we hear from farmers every single day regarding how difficult it is for them to manage the increase in input costs, especially when the Liberal government puts on a carbon tax, and a tariff on fertilizer which has increased fertilizer prices more than 150%. I know, that is incredible, right? When we add a tariff to fertilizer, it impacts global prices, despite what our Liberal members might want us to believe. The Liberals put in front-of-pack labelling, changed Canada's Food Guide and are pushing for a P2 plastics ban. All of these things have impacts not only on farmers, but also on the Canadian consumer.

The new numbers are quite staggering. The Daily Bread Food Bank recently released its updated report on food bank use. Just in Toronto, there were 3.49 million client visits to Toronto-area food banks, nearly one million more than in the previous year; and a 273% increase since the pandemic. That means that one in 10 people in Toronto are being forced to rely on a food bank just to feed their families. Food bank use in Ontario has risen for eight consecutive years. In the last two years, the number of Ontarians accessing food banks has increased 73%. That is nearly triple the jump of the 2008 recession.

I know that the Prime Minister said earlier today that this is a global recession that has impacted these prices. That is simply not true. This is a Liberal-NDP-made problem that the Liberals refuse to fix. In fact, they are doubling down by voting to increase the carbon tax yet again on April 1 and quadrupling that carbon tax to 61¢ a litre.

The facts are clear. Food inflation in Canada is 36% higher than it is in the United States. That clearly shows that this is not a global recession; this is an NDP-Liberal recession that is caused by increasing taxes and increasing spending and is having a trickle-down effect on every aspect of Canada's economy. Rather than learn from those mistakes, the Liberals are ploughing ahead, as I said, by increasing that carbon tax yet again. The Liberals like to say, “Well, Canadians just do not understand what we are trying to do; they are just not listening.” The finance minister liked to say, “We are in the midst of a vibecession. Canadians have really never had it so good.” The finance minister just is not communicating it well enough.

Well, I guess the truth is that the Liberals are clearly out of touch because the people they are talking to truly have never had it so good. They are the Liberal insiders, Liberal members and their friends in corporate Canada who are benefiting from these slush funds and these scandals. Again, while Canadians are lined up at food banks, the Liberal-NDP government is lining the pockets of its insiders and its friends to the detriment of Canadian taxpayers, who are the ones who are truly paying the bills.

It shows just how out of touch the government is when the finance minister said that she knows people cannot afford to put food on the table, but the solution to that is just to cancel their Disney+, park their car and ride their bike. I would love for the finance minister to come to my rural Alberta riding, where we had two feet of snow a week ago, to say, “I just need you guys to park your truck and ride your bike.” It seems like a joke, but this is not a joke.

I will finish with this. This is about the level of this scandal. This is $400 million of taxpayer money and the Liberals need to explain to Canadians why they blew it.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to comments about Bill C‑234. We have always supported this bill. When it came back from the Senate, we did the rational thing, not because we obey the Senate, but because we felt it might not come back to the House if it were sent back to the Senate again. We wanted to lock in the new grain drying provision.

The truth is that the Conservative Party is not letting us pass Bill C‑234, which would give producers in the rest of Canada an exemption for grain drying. I talked about that in my first speech on this bill back in January. It does not even apply to Quebec. We did the honourable thing with respect to the agricultural exemption, but the member is refusing to acknowledge that. I find that offensive.

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

Madam Speaker, I think the member is still on the agriculture committee. Regarding my private member's bill, the Bloc members voted for it at second reading, at committee and at third reading. Then it came back from the Senate amended. Can members believe the Bloc is now taking its orders from the Senate? Now it will not support Bill C-234, which deals with on-farm carbon tax on natural gas and propane. All of a sudden, the Bloc members are listening to the orders from their senators, which is puzzling.

The problem with the member's question, though, is that the Prime Minister dangled it last week. He said, “Hey, I have the list, and there are people from this party and that party on it.” He has opened Pandora's box. That is why the Conservative leader is saying, “Release it. Do the right thing.”

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member brought up taking advantage. The only people taking advantage of anyone are the members of the Liberal-NDP government, who are taking advantage of Canadians. When the government slammed them with a carbon tax scam, it took advantage of them. Now, under the guise of climate change, it is once again trying to take advantage of Canadians and their hard-earned money by awarding $400 million in a slush fund to Liberal-connected insiders. Canadians are tired of being taken advantage of.

The member also talked about farmers. Common-sense Conservatives are always on the side of farmers. That is why we brought Bill C-234 forward to lower the cost of food and once again reward the hard work of our patriotic farmers. What did the corrupt Liberal-NDP government do under its woke, radical environment policies? It made it impossible for anyone to be able to support the bill when the radical environment minister—

Opposition Motion—Confidence in the Government

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and for his usual collaboration.

Indeed, this is something I find deeply disturbing. We are asked to refrain from making personal attacks and stick to debating content, so I will address the grain farmers of Canada. They should call Conservative members and ask them to move forward with a vote on Bill C‑234 before the government is defeated, possibly at the end of October.

That is a good idea. They should call Conservative members and ask them why the House is not voting on Bill C‑234. The bill has passed in the Senate. If the amendments are accepted, the bill will come into force almost automatically. Farmers would get the exemption right away. I strongly advise farmers to call Conservative members.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Madam Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for my colleague. I also have the good fortune to work with him on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

Of course, I supported Bill C‑282, as did our government. I am well aware that the Leader of the Opposition and his local riding association have twice raised the idea of getting rid of supply management with his political party. The possibility exists that the House leader of the official opposition could become the minister of foreign affairs. He once described Brexit as a good thing.

I would like my colleague to help me understand the political game that the Conservatives are playing at the expense of farmers, specifically when it comes to Bill C‑234.

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

Madam Speaker, I think I was a bit hasty in phrasing my question to the leader of the government. We misunderstood one another, but I will come back to this in my speech. I would like her to listen to what I am going to say, and I would like to receive information on Bill C‑234.

I would just add that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Saint-Jean.

Getting back to the motion before the House, I would like to start by saying that our Conservative colleagues are not being serious. They are mocking us today. I say that because, two days ago, they moved a non-confidence motion that said the House does not have confidence in the Prime Minister. That is all it said. Our response was that we found it interesting that they thought that. Let me reassure them. We do not trust anyone. We do not have confidence in the current government and we do not have confidence in any Conservative government. My job is to protect the interests of Quebec until we are independent. That is our job. We are trying to make progress every day. We will continue to do so, despite the Leader of the Opposition's ambitions and his propensity for stamping his feet. He really wants to be emperor, replacing the current emperor. We told them that it was not enough. We will vote on motions with some substance. Two days later, with more theatrics, they come up with the idea of including their slogan in the motion, thinking that we would definitely vote with them. How can anyone take them seriously?

I find it quite sad. I am not making personal attacks, I am talking about the content. As members know, I focus on content, and I want things to move forward. We tell them that it is not good enough and that we are going to vote for things that are important to Quebec. They come back with a motion saying it is time to “axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime”, which they repeat to us ad nauseam, approximately 72 times a day, without ever explaining it. That is what I find interesting. I want to hear them explain what they are going to do.

They tell us in the motion that food has been taxed. I just spoke on Bill C‑234, which deals with the carbon tax we keep hearing about. As we in the Bloc Québécois are reasonable people, we agreed to create an exemption for grain drying. The bill already went to the Senate and has come back to the House. All that remains is to vote on it. The first speech I made in the House last January dealt with this, but since then, people claiming to want to make life easier for farmers have been blocking the legislation. They are adding speakers to fill the time and they are not allowing us to vote on the bill. Once we vote on it, it will be settled, provided we accept the Senate amendments, of course. That is the reasonable, intelligent and rational choice that the Bloc team has made, because that is how we operate.

The Conservatives keep yelling at me that the government is taxing food, but I would like them to show me that they do not plan to do the same. Results do not matter to them. What they want is an election. They are scheming for power. Nothing else matters. All they want is to score political points, spout slogans, generate sound bites and rake in money. They are not working for the people.

They talk to us about housing. Many times I have heard government representatives say that the Leader of the Opposition, while serving as housing minister, created something like six affordable housing units. I must confess, I did not check this figure. We hear it often. There must be some truth to it, although we should exercise caution. Everything said in the House is not necessarily true. We have to be careful. There is no proof. We will be careful.

People talk to us about interference and a centralist government, but the opposition leader is directly threatening cities with funding cuts if he does not like the look of the mayor. That is quite something. We are hearing that if a mayor is incompetent, their funding will be cut. First of all, he has no right to do that in Quebec. That has to go through Quebec. There is more to it than that.

They might be angry because they received only 12% of the vote in LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. They are hot and bothered about getting a more positive vote, maybe. Even yesterday, members began saying that the Bloc Québécois was no longer party of the regions because we captured a Montreal riding. That is interesting. We in the Bloc work for everyone.

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

Madam Speaker, as government leader, my colleague must be in the know. I would like her to apprise me of the status of Bill C‑234, because our Conservative colleagues have been yelling non-stop against the carbon tax.

Quite reasonably, an exemption was created in Bill C‑234. I would like my colleague to tell me whether what I heard is true. It seems to me that so many speakers are being added that we will never be able to pass this bill.

Is it true? Could the vote happen soon?

Finance

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Madam Speaker, the extraordinary display of hypocrisy that just occurred in the House has never before been seen on a level like that in the history of this country and in the history of this austere chamber.

What happened? The leader of the NDP knew he was going down. We had a great candidate. I was at doors with him many times. Colin Reynolds is a construction electrician, a guy on the executive of his local IBEW union board who grew up in the area and who really connected with the residents.

The leader of the NDP knew he was going to lose the by-election. What did he do? He said that he was ripping up the agreement and that he was done with the Prime Minister. Unfortunately, the people of Elmwood—Transcona deserve better. They deserve better than having the leader of the NDP try to fool them into thinking he is a man of principle. He is not, and that was established today. In front of the entire country, the man who said he was ripping up the agreement got up, taped it back together and said that he believes in the Prime Minister and is voting with him. In fact, he said he has confidence in the Prime Minister.

The height of hypocrisy is on a level never, ever before seen on the floor of the chamber. Canadians will not forget it, and the people of Elmwood—Transcona will not forget it come the next election.

Regarding the issue of the report, as I said, I sit on the committee. Conservatives really are the only members on the committee who are doing their best to hold the government to account. We had some great ideas for the report that our colleagues from other parties on the committee would not support. Therefore, for the people watching, I will explain that we attached a dissenting report to the report, which we are allowed to do. Anyone can look it up online and read the dissenting report. I want to go through some parts of it, but before I do, I want to just circle back for a second to look at part of the Liberal government's record.

In 2015, in order to fool Canadians into voting for him, the Prime Minister promised to balance the budget by 2019. Of course that never happened. In fact he doubled the national debt in nine years. It is hard to get one's head around that, but just to put it in perspective, in 2015, when the Prime Minister first was elected to office, the national debt was $616 billion. Today it is over $1.2 trillion. The Prime Minister has gone more in debt than all other prime ministers from 1867 to today combined.

Today the interest on the debt is $52 billion a year, which is more than we spend on health care, more than we spend on defence and in fact more than we actually collect in the GST. It is important for people watching to know that when they go out and buy something in the store and the store adds on the GST, that money is going directly to paying the interest on the massive, historic debt that the Prime Minister has managed to rack up.

Therefore at committee, Conservatives made a number of common-sense recommendations that were rejected by the NDP and Liberal members. One of the recommendations we made, which we had hoped would be a recommendation in the report, was to axe the carbon tax. The reason we wanted to axe the carbon tax is pretty straightforward, and I will go through some of those points. For example, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, came to committee and told us that the carbon taxes are inflationary and that by cutting the carbon tax, inflation would come down by 0.6%, bringing the CPI back into the bank's target range.

The government has an opportunity now to start with the carbon tax on farmers. The common-sense Conservative bill, Bill C-234, should be passed immediately in its original form to take the tax off farmers to help lower food prices. I know it has been said many times in the House, but when one taxes the farmer who produces the food, taxes the trucker who ships the food and taxes the grocer who stocks the food, the food costs more. What is the result? It is two million Canadians lining up at food banks, and a historic number of homeless encampments across this country.

Earlier this year, as part of the finance committee's housing study, Mayor Cam Guthrie from Guelph was a witness. He was elected in 2014. I asked Mayor Guthrie how many homeless encampments there were in Guelph the year he was elected. He said there were zero. I asked how many there are today, and he said there are 20. That is just one example.

I made a speech about this the other day in the House and went through the litany of housing-hell stories across this country as a result of the apocalyptic, historically terrible housing policies of the Liberal government. With $82 billion on the national housing strategy, never before has so much been spent to achieve so little.

It is time to axe the failed and inflationary carbon tax that makes gas, groceries and home heating more expensive, and to bring down inflation so Canadians can once again earn powerful paycheques so they can afford nutritious food and a home in a safe neighbourhood. It seems like a simple ask, part of the Canadian dream, but that dream has been broken by the failed policies of the Liberal government.

We said to axe the tax, and we also talked about building more homes. There is a housing crisis in this country. There is an affordability crisis, and we need to build millions of homes. However, the Liberals and the NDP voted against our common-sense Conservative bill, the building homes, not bureaucracy act, a bill that would have gotten houses built. Instead they just got in the way. They are the gatekeepers of the House of Commons, and they got in the way of a common-sense bill that would have helped Canadians. Of course, we also need to fix the budget and stop the crime. Let us bring it home.

Opposition Motion—Confidence in the Prime Minister and the Government

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-234 was an amazing, great, common-sense Conservative bill in its original form. However, since the radical, ideological, orange jumpsuit-wearing environment minister bullied senators into changing it into some radical new form, it would do nothing but punish farmers even more. Not only is the government punishing farmers with its carbon tax scam and radical ideologies, but Bill C-234 in its original form would have rewarded our hard-working farmers. This is one thing Liberals have failed to admit: If we are taxing the farmer who is making the food and the trucker who is shipping the food, at the end of the day, that cost all gets passed down to the person who is purchasing the food.

It is time to axe the tax and bring back Bill C-234 in its original form to get the cost of food down again.

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

Mr. Speaker, let us have a debate on the content. I know this subject quite well.

The member talked a lot about the carbon tax in his introduction. I would like to talk to him about Bill C‑234. We have had a lot of discussions about it in the House. There has also been a lot of tension around this bill. Yesterday, in my speech, I explained that we had chosen to accept the Senate amendments and that we could put the bill to a vote. This bill has been in the House since January, but the Conservatives will not let us vote on it.

I will ask my colleague the following question. Why not vote in favour of the grain drying exemption? That would give something meaningful to farmers right away. Are the Conservatives ready to put the bill to a vote?

[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?