Thanks very much, Chair.
I appreciate this, because in light of our transportation infrastructure, it is certainly an important issue to many Canadians. That's in part what leads me to move a motion that was put on notice on December 1, 2023. I have a copy here for the clerks. Chair, it's an important issue that certainly we hear about very often. I look forward to being able to discuss this at length, because certainly when it comes to the issue of the carbon tax, a carbon tax impacts the people of this country from coast to coast to coast. I appreciate the clerk's distributing that, and I will move this motion in due course.
I have heard from constituents, from Albertans, and from other Canadians about the impact of the carbon tax on their livelihood and truly their ability to make ends meet. I want to share a number with you that is very telling. According to Statistics Canada, there are 189,874 farms in this country. I share that number because this past weekend it actually changed. It changed by one. Now, that may not seem like a lot, but as that number goes from 189,874 to 189,873, it is a story that I hope the committee will indulge my sharing.
It is the story of Dawn and a multi-generational farm that she, up until this past weekend, ran. That farm was Shirley's Greenhouse, named after her late mother. What is so very tragic about this story is that she was forced to sell her operation. This multi-generational farm is finished. In my conversation with her this past weekend, she asked me to speak up on her behalf and on behalf of the many other farmers across our nation who are suffering the consequences of the carbon tax.
In due time, Chair, I will in fact move this motion—which I believe everybody now has a copy of in both official languages—because that is so very important, because of stories like Dawn's and the fact that her multi-generational farm operation saw its end because of the policies of this Liberal government.
Chair, what I intend to do here, just so the members of the committee know fully, is to speak for a few minutes and then move the motion and look forward to further discussion on this.
There were two parts of this conversation I had with Dawn that I believe were very noteworthy and that spoke to something that is—