Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for being here today to discuss this very important topic.
A common theme I've heard throughout the testimony we've just heard is the fact that the costs farmers face—especially when it comes to the carbon tax on drying their grains in this particular instance—are not able to be passed on to the consumer. That means that farmers are having a harder time making ends meet, so they are not actually getting the profits they should in their business to keep farming.
If we continue to have policies such as this, what I see happening is that it's going to price farmers out of the business of farming. We're not going to see the next generation taking over the family farms, because they simply can't afford it. If we don't have farmers, we don't have food.
Particularly in my riding, it being a very heavily agricultural riding and a riding that farms a lot corn, soy and grain as well, this is very pertinent. I was just visiting a corn farmer on the weekend. He has a state-of-the-art new drying system. Most folks don't understand that the corn must go through the dryer in order to get the moisture content down so it can be stored.
I have a question for the Grain Farmers of Ontario.
Just to go back for a second, I've been told that this farm requires six hours in a dryer to get its corn dry enough to go into storage. Then it's going to become ethanol or go into feed. Farmers are running these machines 24-7. Sometimes it's for a month; sometimes it's for three weeks, and sometimes it's for six weeks. We've had a really wet fall. Moisture content is high in Ontario right now. There's also a threat of disease setting in if they don't harvest the corn right now with the rain that keeps coming.
What will farmers get back of the carbon tax compared to what they're actually paying? To me, $800 seems like a drop in the bucket to somebody who has to run a propane or natural gas grain dryer for 24 hours a day.