Thank you to our witnesses for being here this afternoon for this important discussion.
I want to pick up on a couple of themes from our first questions, and I know some of you were here but I think it's prudent for these witnesses.
I appreciate the sentiments of my colleagues on the other side, Mr. Drouin and Mr. Longfield, in talking about how important our family farms are to our economy and how they've heard from farmers about their concerns on these potential tax changes, but I find their comments to be a little disingenuous, because we've heard over the last couple of weeks that there's been no movement from our current Liberal government in terms of extending that consultation. I think if you were really genuine about wanting to ensure that these are not going to impact our Canadian farmers, then you would extend that consultation period. I think to end that consultation period right in the middle of harvest shows just how much of a priority the feedback and input from our Canadian farmers truly is.
I again ask the Liberal government to consider extending that consultation period, and if it was a priority you would have agreed to our motion today, which would have asked us to study the financial implications of these tax changes on agriculture. You did not want to do that, so I think your concern about protecting our small farms is maybe a little misled.
One of the things we've talked about in this study is about ensuring that we have affordable food, but everything our colleagues across are talking about, in my mind, would do the opposite. I took note of a few things today. On transportation, they're not extending the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act. There's the carbon tax, and eliminating the deferral on cash grain tickets. Those types of things, in my mind, would make agriculture more expensive and our access to food less affordable.
I'd like your opinion on what you see as some of the implications of the tax changes that the current government is making and the impact it is going to have on our access and our ability to access affordable food.