I don't want to belabour the point too much more. It's just that when I was first approached with the idea for a fix in this section, I think it was back in January 2020, the “before” times, before the pandemic hit us. I can remember speaking with the Keystone Agricultural Producers. A number of farmer organizations had identified the need to exempt natural gas and propane. There was a lot of conversation about the “harvest from hell”.
When Bill C-206 came about and I devoted a considerable amount of my second reading speech in support of the bill, the intent behind the bill was always to address the substantial grain-drying costs that farmers had. I've never, ever heard any arguments, up until this point, made in favour of expanding it to include aviation gasoline. Perhaps I could have been convinced back then, but we've gone so far along the process on Bill C-206 that to have this suddenly come forward like this doesn't give us a lot of time to really consider it fully.
That's my counterpoint, that I have yet to see the evidence that was presented at committee where substantive arguments were made in favour of adding aviation gasoline. As I said, I did a word search of all the witness testimony. There was only one mention of the word “aviation”. It wasn't aviation gasoline, and it was made on April 29. Unless I'm missing something from briefs, I understand the rationale behind it, but we haven't had the witness testimony really underlying and making the case for it up to this point.
I've always understood that it was for grain drying, and grain drying was the sole impetus behind this bill. In my opinion, this just seems like a bit of mission creep.