Sure. Thank you, Mr. Maguire.
There are a few things to touch on. I would certainly recommend it. The connection between food security and a just transition might not seem to be obviously connected, but I think it's very evident that they are. The average price of diesel on a farm in whatever province has largely doubled, it's a significant cost increase, and as mentioned, we can't pass those costs down.
I appreciate Mr. Currie's mentioning of the carbon tax exemption in Bill C-234. That policy is simply taking money out of the pockets of farmers when they go to dry their grain. You have to store your grain at a certain moisture level or it will rot. You will no longer have a product in your bin, and you will have something to throw away. That money is better invested in the new technologies and things like precision agriculture, applying the precise amount of inputs with less application, great, but they're very expensive, but you'd be buying a $600,000 piece of equipment at a time when a lot of farms are lucky to be breaking even.
Last year across much of the Prairies, there was a drought. As you mentioned, this year in southern Alberta and parts of Saskatchewan there's serious drought, and in Manitoba, where I'm from, it's largely under water. It is a challenging time, so I would absolutely recommend considering using that food security lens to be considered as we look to the just transition. It's one thing to aim for this, and I think when we look towards perhaps the electrification of a tractor down the road, that would be a great thing, but there are some substantial changes that—