Agriculture Committee on March 9th, 2021

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I apologize. I didn't quite understand. It might have been the interpretation.

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

Mr. Lawrence, what should we do with the money collected from farmers?

You said that there refunds, it was partial, there was a lot of paperwork, and so on.

If your bill isn't passed, or if it's partially passed, what should be done with the money collected from this tax?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I believe that, as much as possible, we should have an exemption as opposed to a rebate. If a rebate is ever in place, that money should go directly back to Canadian taxpayers, but my preference would be to have that exemption. Currently, the carbon tax is not expenditure neutral, meaning Canadians pay more in carbon tax than they receive. That was acknowledged today at the public accounts committee.

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

We're here to ask questions and think together.

Isn't there a middle ground with lower taxation? The money collected could be invested in research and development or in direct investments in farms.

You mentioned solutions like biomass, which is extremely expensive. Rather than saying that there's no tax and that the government will support the sector, couldn't there be some participation in transition assistance plans, and not necessarily in the form of a tax.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Like you said, I want to have a collaborative and open tone with respect to this legislation. At the end of the day, I just want to help farmers. I just want to make it a bit less expensive for farmers. Am I supporter of research and development? Absolutely. Canada right now is actually lagging behind in the OECD in R and D. In fact, our GDP to R and D spending is below that of the EU, the United States and Australia. You raise a great point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you Mr. Lawrence.

We'll now move to Mr. MacGregor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I was listening to your exchange with Mr. Drouin. We live in a place and time where you can both be right. Mr. Drouin has a point in recognizing where we have to go as a world and that every sector has to do their part, including farmers, and they are.

You can be right in recognizing that farmers, right now, do have these costs, and they don't have alternative options. This is what I see as a bridge benefit, and something that's going to allow them to respond to some of these unexpected costs. If we do get another really wet fall, and farmers are having to dry their grain, that's going to be a cost that they just can't escape.

I know you don't have a lot time to give me an answer, but you said you would be open to an amendment to your bill that would cover barn heating. I live in a part of Canada where we don't have brutally cold weather like they do on the Prairies. I can only imagine what the costs are to keep an animal barn heated, so that the animals aren't freezing to death. You may not be able to give me the answer right now, but would you be able to submit to the committee what your proposed amending language would be for us to consider?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Yes, certainly, no problem. We have already had discussions. I don't have that amendment drafted, but we've had discussions with the legislative clerk, and I would be happy to report back to the committee on what the amendment might look like.

I agree with everything you're saying. It's sage counsel that both Mr. Drouin and I can be right. I don't really want this bill to be a discussion about the carbon tax in total. I just want to help farmers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Next is Mr. Steinley for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, and thank you to my colleague for being here.

I've heard a lot of discussion around some of the ideas of what we could do to help farmers. Philip is saying that he wants to put forward a bill that helps farmers.

In that vein, Philip, you've done a wide range of consultations and during those consultations, how many farmers have said that this exemption is not needed?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

None. Even farmers who don't specifically dry grain, or maybe aren't affected by it specifically, they all know people who are and they see the impact it's had on farmers. It's part of the economy of agriculture, because there are so many price-takers in the farming industry that when you increase the cost of input, it makes them less competitive. Quite frankly, many countries across the world don't have the same price on pollution. They don't have the same carbon tax they're fighting against, so it makes it that much more difficult.

Even people outside the agriculture industry, everyone's interested in having lower food costs, particularly during the pandemic. We've seen inflation across many of our major grocery store chains. We want to keep food costs down, because that affects, quite frankly, the most vulnerable of Canadians the most.

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

In having this conversation and listening to my colleagues say that we need to engage farmers and make sure that they realize that they need to be environmentally friendly, and that we need to do our part, which I agree with, I would say to my colleagues in this meeting right now, and to you, Mr. Lawrence, is that farmers do do their part. Ranchers do do their part.

I remember on our farm that my father and uncle used to, summer and fall, harrow. You could see the topsoil fly about 10 miles down the road. We went to zero tillage seeding, and that was great for soil conservation.

When farmers find innovations that are good for their soil and good for the environment, they do it on their own. They don't need this approach where.... I thought back on this when we were talking about our next study. You don't need to tell farmers to do better because they are constantly looking for innovation and abilities to do better, such as to have more fuel efficient vehicles. Farmers, ranchers and producers want to do that because it helps their bottom line, and they know it's good for the environment.

With regard to soil conservation, they want to do that because they know that the soil is their livelihood, and they want to have that soil as fertile and healthy as possible.

I know you don't want to get into the whole debate around the carbon tax, but this exemption, I would tell my colleagues, is for farmers to be able to maybe put some extra money into innovation, to put some more money in their pockets so that they can maybe experiment with another crop so that it can have more nutrients in the soil.

Farmers don't need an “Ottawa knows best” approach. Sometimes maybe we need to take a step back and listen to what farmers and producers are doing, instead of always thinking that we need to lead the pack. Maybe sometimes we need to take a look at what these producers are doing across the country.

Could you comment on that, Mr. Lawrence?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Steinley, and thank you for your wise words.

I think it's a long-held belief of mine that if Canadians, in this case, particularly farmers, keep the money in their own jeans, they're more capable of making those appropriate decisions than Ottawa ever will be.

I will bet on the wisdom, the environmentalism and the sustainability of our farmers any day. Like I said, I live in farm country. They are amongst the most intelligent, hard-working people that our country is blessed with.

Yes, I agree with your sentiments exactly. If we leave that money in the blue jeans of farmers, they will do a better job of spending it than Ottawa ever could.

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

Thank you.

Just to circle around, Mr. Ellis had a conversation around grain drying, and obviously there are your comments around the ability for us to exempt some of the fuels for grain drying. How do you see that panning out?

We did have, like you said colloquially, the harvest from hell here in western Saskatchewan. When it's wet, we need to get that crop off and get it in the bins, and dry it when it's in the bins.

I know, Alistair, we do have a bit colder winters, so barn heating when we're calving here when it's snowing in mid-March is pretty important for our livestock producers.

Just give us a little conversation around that, Philip, and how we can make sure that we're helping those farmers who have to dry the grain and make sure that the barns are heated for calving season or lambing season, whichever it may be.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Yes, there's no doubt. Anyone who's been to a farm and has seen a grain dryer knows that it's part of the integral part of a farm. If, in fact, a grain farmer in the autumn of 2019 didn't have a grain dryer, the ability to dry grain, that farmer would have no product, and—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you.

Sorry, Mr. Lawrence.

Mr. Drouin, you have up to five minutes.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Great.

Thank you again, Mr. Lawrence, for being with us.

I just want to make one comment.

We're not trying to penalize any farmer. What we're trying to change is the landscape of certain carbon-intensive suppliers to our farmers, and I think that's a distinction.

I just have one question for you, Mr. Lawrence. I know you said, in your exchange with Mr. MacGregor, that you were working on a particular amendment. In terms of timing, do you know when that amendment may or may not be ready for us to consider?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I am at the behest of the committee, so you'll have to tell me when the scheduling.... I believe that we're not scheduled to return now for a little while, but next time we're discussing that, I would probably be able to table it.

What I would say is that, if the government wants to, if its only objection to my bill is the fact that it doesn't explicitly say “grain drying”, which I think common sense would tell you it includes—you can ask any farmer—the good news is that you guys are in government. You can introduce a bill tomorrow, and trust me, you'll have my support and, I would suspect, that of the rest of my party.

Let's get this done if that's the position of the Liberal Party of Canada. Let's help farmers. Let's not just start parsing small words to delay things.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

The only comment I would make is that you had better have a conversation with your House leader, because right now legislation is moving as slowly as molasses.

It's great to have you here, and I appreciate your coming before our committee. Thank you.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Perfect. I couldn't get through a committee without saying that if you guys hadn't prorogued because of the WE scandal, we would be further along in the legislation. That completes our—

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

That's a long way out from Bill C-206.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

I think we're getting into some debate, so we had better end it here.

This is all the time we have for this, but I want to thank Mr. Lawrence for being here to explain his bill.

We shall now suspend and go in camera for our business session, to look at the coming weeks.

Everybody needs to log out and then come back on for the in camera session. We'll see you on the other side.

[Proceedings continue in camera]