Agriculture Committee on June 16th, 2022

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Lobb, for the attention you have paid again to our farm community. I want to thank you for bringing this very important issue forward to our agriculture committee.

Last year, when I was on the finance committee, we passed Larry Maguire's Bill C-208, which allowed farmers to successfully transition their farms to their children with the same favourable tax treatment as selling it to a third party. A lot of these transitions to the next generation still mean that the second generation has to be highly leveraged.

I'm wondering if you considered the impact of highly leveraged young farmers when you presented your idea in this private member's bill.

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

The number of phone calls and emails I've received has been interesting. Some have been from local farmers, some from people I went to high school with—I hate to give my age up here, but in their mid-40s—and some who are younger. They gave their thoughts on it and how much of a difference it would make to them and their families.

They are looking at different things, with planting the crops and putting the fertilizer on, and the increase in that in addition to the tariff and a number of different things. I'm telling you, it will make a difference. It's not going to save their lives, but it is going to make a difference to their bottom line. In some cases, it will be very significant.

I'll give you pork as an example. That is a very tight margin, high volume area, and they have had it tough for years. This is a chance to cut them a break and give them maybe 0.5% on their margin, or even 1% of their margin, just to give them a bit of breathing room month-to-month, in the wintertime anyway.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Would you, Mr. Lobb, be of the opinion that farmers would use fuels unnecessarily?

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

No, I wouldn't.

I can't believe how formal everybody is here today, calling me Mr. Lobb. I've never had that before. I've only been called Ben or worse.

Mr. MacGregor was talking about the guys who would try to burn dyed fuel in their diesel trucks or their diesel cars, and I think they call that a “dipstick”. I don't think anybody would do that, to be honest with you. I'm sure there would be somebody. But, no, it's pretty straightforward. I think they would appreciative having the opportunity to not pay the tax that they would not do something stupid and try to skirt the rules.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Right.

I've talked to a bunch of young farmers in my riding about heating chicken barns and hog barns in the winter. Certainly here in Manitoba it becomes very cold. We get those cold prairie winds. They have no choice but to use either propane or diesel fuel to heat their facilities and to keep their livestock warm. I haven't talked to one of them who would incur that expense if it weren't absolutely necessary. I also talked to grain farmers. I haven't talked to any grain farmers who fire up that grain dryer unless it's absolutely necessary, because it actually takes money straight off the bottom line.

This is a simple way. We've recognized the importance of farming by exempting farm fuels for use on cropping, and we should extend that then to the drying of that cropping. I think that's just common sense. If we recognize the importance of farming, then we need to extend it all the way and make sure that for livestock facilities and also grain dryers, we have the same exemption in place.

I really appreciate your comments on food sovereignty.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. Falk, would you like to cede the rest of your time? There's now only about 30 seconds left.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Yes. I'd like Mr. Barlow to ask a question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

It's over to you, John.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Mr. Lobb—Ben—

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

Thank you, John.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

—one of the questions was, are there other sources for grain drying and heating barns? Obviously we're talking about green energy, such as solar and wind, but we're talking about rural Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and I think when you're talking about protecting livestock and animal health, reliability of that energy source is also critical, is it not?

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

It definitely is.

When you think of a weaner barn, or when your chicks first come into a broiler barn and they're just tiny, you have to have that barn heated. It needs to be heated at a certain temperature, because you do not want to have a catastrophic event.

I think back to a couple of years ago when we had an issue with getting propane in from Sarnia, in through Ontario and into Quebec. We were within 24 hours of having some serious events occur.

So it needs to be robust. Sure, you can supplement it with other renewables at this time, but when you have a barn full of chicks or a barn full of weaner pigs, you cannot take that chance. To be ethical, you don't want to take that chance.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Lobb.

Thank you, Mr. Barlow.

We will turn now to Ms. Valdez.

It's over to you for five minutes.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Welcome, Mr. Lobb—or Ben. Can I call you Ben?

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

Thank you. Yes.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I appreciate the dialogue to better understand Bill C-234. On March 25 when you made your speech, you said, “farm producers and farmers do not get credit for any of the environmental good that they do on their farms” and “they get no credit for any of the carbon sequestration of their crops. They get no credit for their grasslands or woodlots.” I was wondering if you could clarify and elaborate on what you were speaking about then.

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

Well, it's very good that you looked up that speech. We don't always remember what we've said.

In that context, basically I was saying look at all they do. Look at everything farmers do on their farms. For what they are paying, for tax and everything else, they really get no economic credit for the environmental good they do, in my opinion.

Of course, Bill C-8 wasn't passed at that time. But some people over on this side might say, “You're starting to receive some credit for the environmental good you do.” I would say a few bucks on $10,000 worth of expenses is a pretty low threshold.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Some farmers are moving to become more sustainable. In this committee, we recently studied the environmental impacts on agriculture. What can we do, then, to incentivize farmers to help them become more sustainable?

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

Well, I know many Mennonites and Amish people in and around my area, and they are sustainable. But they basically grow for themselves and their communities, and maybe a few farmers' markets along the way. That's not a model.... It's a good model, and they're friends of mine, and I've known them since I was a kid. However, in the traditional sense of agriculture farming in the year 2022, we are trying to feed all the cities and we're trying to export some around the world, so we're working on a model of sustainability.

I think there already is a model of a sustainability, but truly going full circle I think is what we're all talking about, and we're not quite there. It will be innovation and technology that gets us there.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

We've talked about this a bit in this committee, but over the past 30 years, there's obviously been a huge change in how farmers operate in terms of sustainable practices.

The Canola Council of Canada found that using genetically modified canola oil helps reduce soil tillage, reduces the use of herbicides and cuts the use of fuel consumption.

Do you encourage our farmers to use these practices as well?

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

I think, as a farmer, you have to make your own business decision on what you want to do. There are people who are organic farmers in Huron—Bruce, and they would tell you that their model is the best. Then there are conventional farmers, who have different crops, and use Roundup and fertilizer sprays, pesticides, herbicides, etc. I think either one is perfectly acceptable. It's your own business model.

Even on an organic farm that wouldn't use the sprays, they will go up and down their crop rows with tractors and modified equipment to keep the weeds off the ground. They're still using combustion engines to maintain the integrity of their crop in the field.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you for that.

You touched on it earlier, but what kinds of barriers do farmers face when transitioning to more environmentally friendly sources of fuel consumption? You mentioned a few, but can you elaborate?

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

In general, I think they have to be profitable. That's one thing. If you're not profitable in agriculture, it's hard to make investments in anything.

If you looked at a tractor 40 or 50 years ago—what a John Deere 4430 looked like—and what it looks like today, it's completely changed. It wasn't through an ag program or through government grants per se; it was through a bunch of brilliant people who made change, and produced—you can debate which one is better—the tractors of today and what they're able to do.

With precision spraying and all the stuff that's used with drones and all that, most of that does not come from government grants. It has mostly come through technology and brilliant people, who maybe grew up on a farm and were able to apply it to what they're doing.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you, Ben.