Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, everybody, for being here. I'm sure you would all agree that once a farmer and/or rancher, always a farmer and/or rancher. It's part of your system. It's part of your life. We need more and more Canadians to take up that aspect of things.
I'm in Saskatchewan. Obviously, I have a lot of the agriculture aspect in my area. To help farmers deal with the effects of COVID-19, the industry requested that the Minister of Agriculture waive the carbon tax fee with respect to grain drying costs after what was dubbed the “harvest from hell” due to the poor weather and excess moisture out here. We learned last week that the minister will not allow any exemption. She also stated that, at most, farmers were paying $819 per farm to dry their grain, even though APAS provided data that showed otherwise.
I personally know this to be untrue, as many of my constituents have come to me or written to me and shown me the exorbitant drying costs that some have been paying, some over $10,000, just to have their produce ready for sale.
Ms. Robinson, have you or your organization heard from farmers regarding these types of costs, compounding the issues they're already facing with COVID-19?