Good morning.
Mr. Chair and honourable committee members, thank you for having me here today to present on behalf of Manitoba farmers for the 2024 federal pre-budget consultations.
My name is Jill Verwey. I am president of Keystone Agricultural Producers. I operate a multi-generational mixed farming operation with my husband and children in Portage la Prairie, where we primarily grow 8,000 acres of grain. We own a commercial beef operation and a dairy operation.
I'm joined here today by our manager of communications and stakeholder relations, Colin Hornby.
Keystone Agricultural Producers is Manitoba's general farm policy organization, providing a unified voice on the issues that affect agriculture. We are also members of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, a lead national advocacy organization for our sector that presented to your committee last month and provided you with several recommendations.
As a member of CFA, we endorse their recommendations; however, we would like to underline a few that are particularly important to our members here in Manitoba. These recommendations highlight areas where the federal government can make a positive impact for farmers, agriculture and the Canadian economy through the budgetary process.
First is to extend the on-farm exemption for qualifying farm fuel to marketable natural gas and propane. This would implement the changes outlined in Bill C-234, which we fully endorse. Farmers should not be excessively taxed on an essential part of their business when economically viable alternatives do not exist. In particular, this pertains to activities like drying grain to ensure farm food safety, and heating and cooling of livestock buildings to maintain animal welfare and best practices.
Number two is to exempt farms from filing the underused housing tax or UHT return, which requires private corporations and partnerships, including farming operations, that own residential properties to file a UHT return, adding unnecessary financial burden even if we do not have to pay the tax. This requirement has caused financial and administrative burden to many farmers, as they have to pay a professional to prepare and file this UHT return even when they know that they are exempt from the tax. Although there is an exemption process available for farmers, the application process itself is costly, adding to the already increasing expense of the farming operation in our input costs, energy costs and regulatory requirements.