Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for inviting me again to appear in front of your committee. The last time I presented was in February. There was a snowstorm, and I think I reflected on the challenges of the Internet in rural regions. I am proud to say that we've had an upgrade in our region, so I should be fine on my Internet today. As well, there is no snow.
When I appeared the last time, it was to discuss processing capacity. I note that your report has come out, and I would really like to congratulate the committee on a great report that came out, with substantial recommendations. My hope is that the government will reach out to stakeholders in order to discuss implementation—stakeholders such as us.
That would be great to see, but I'm here to discuss Bill C-206, Mr. Chair.
I wanted to mention first that the intent of the draft legislation is to extend the exemption on the carbon tax to some farming operations that use propane and natural gas. As you know, reducing GHG emissions is a priority. It's a priority for Canada. It is a priority for farmers. However, when there are no viable options, farmers shouldn't be penalized for doing what they do best: feeding Canadians and contributing to our economy.
We are certainly supportive of this legislation, and we are supportive for the following reasons.
At this point, there are no viable options that are scalable to serve the whole sector. While there are some new technologies, they still need to be researched, especially in terms of how they adapt to our particular conditions in Canada.
The scalability of those new technologies is also an issue. We're simply not there yet, and we must be realistic that we will not be able to scale up those new technologies in the near future.
We've researched the issue, Mr. Chair. We've consulted our members, and there was an almost unanimous response from our members on this issue. Increasing the costs for farmers will lead to some abandoning agriculture, and this will have a negative impact on our jobs, on the trade balance and also on our food security, an issue that we should really consider specifically.
The AIC recently held a webinar on agrifood and climate change. It included international experts such as Dr. Ould-Dada, deputy director at the UN food and agriculture organization; Dr. Ringler, who is with the International Food Policy Research Institute; and Dr. Sally Rockey, a long-time senior civil servant in the U.S. and now executive director of the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research.
They all agreed with the following statement: It is important to consider food security when implementing measures to reduce GHG emissions in agriculture, and sustained investments in research and innovation are essential to support reductions in GHG emissions in agriculture and adaptation to climate change.
We certainly agree with those two statements from our experts, and we believe that the committee should reflect on those and pass [Technical difficulty—Editor]. However, we also believe that the exemption should go to other types of farming.
The exemption right now is limited to some types of farming, and we believe that it is not fair to penalize other types of farmers, such as farmers who have barns and need heat for animals. It's not fair for them to be left aside. There are other types of farmers who also do important work and provide Canada and Canadians with an important service that is required, and we believe that they should also be considered in and supported through this legislation.
As well, Mr. Chair, we believe that the measure should be permanent. This was a topic of some discussion within our council, but ultimately the great majority of our members who responded to the survey indicated that it was important to extend the protection on a permanent basis.
The rationale for this is simple. Farmers make significant investments in material and equipment. For them to have a temporary measure will increase concerns and affect their ability to plan financially and get new machinery. As no machinery and no technology is scalable at this point to enable them, in a viable manner, to have other sources of fuel, such as clean and renewable fuel, we believe that the measure should be permanent to give them certainty—and I stress the word certainty—that there will be no changes in the near future.
Mr. Chair, there are greener alternatives, and there are various alternatives such as gasification systems, low-temperature pyrolysis, anaerobic digesters and battery-based equipment. There certainly are different alternatives, but there are several factors that work against those alternatives. I mentioned that they're often not viable. The price is simply too high and the price to scale them is not feasible.
We also have to remember that our farmers compete internationally against the U.S., Russia, Brazil and other countries. We have to be careful on that—