Transport Committee on Dec. 13th, 2023

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

In your opinion, is this necessary? Are there not other pieces of legislation that already deal with this?

[Heather Moriarty]

Could I ask for clarification?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I'm sorry, Ms. Moriarty. I have Ms. Read, who has her hand raised. My apologies.

Go ahead, Ms. Read.

[Sonya Read, Director General, Marine Policy, Department of Transport]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am probably going to say exactly the same thing that my colleague was going to ask.

That is, could we get clarity on the question in terms of what the member was trying to ask about what it was intended to deal with?

I'm not clear on what the question is.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

We've heard a couple of times that this is “break glass in case of emergency” language.

How likely is such a scenario to arise? Is this even necessary at all?

It sounds like we're being overly prescriptive with this.

[Sonya Read]

I think, as my colleague has noted numerous times, that there are a number of scenarios that could possibly arise where such a provision would be used outside of the context of a labour dispute. It's not intended for labour disputes. I think we've noted that a couple of times in the context of the responses that were provided. However, there are a number of scenarios outside of that where a provision such as this may, in fact, be necessary.

It's impossible to predict what situations may arise in the future. This is designed to deal with emergency situations and ensure that the Government of Canada has tools at its disposal when necessary to prevent that imminent harm from happening to the supply chains or to the national security of the supply chains in case those situations do arise.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

You've just indicated that it's impossible to crystal-ball scenarios where this may be necessary in the future. If we harken back to the beginning of the pandemic, March 2020, and the supply issues, you just referred to the fact that this provision would have been used.

Do you think that having this in place in federal legislation at that time...? What benefits would we have seen in the years 2020, 2021 and 2022 as those supply chains were in crisis?

[Sonya Read]

In the context of previous actions, we would have to go through an analysis of the situation and the evidence at that time and then try to apply what the provision would look like. I don't have all of the evidence and all of the information at hand so that we could go through that whole assessment in terms of how or when this would be applied to various situations.

We've been looking at scenarios, for example, in the context of geopolitical unrest. A terminal operator, for example, may refuse to accept certain shipments or refuse to load certain shipments. It would ensure that we are able to continue to preserve the security of Canada's competition and prevent that kind of harm from occurring. That would certainly be one example.

Another example may be in the event of a climate disaster or some other event that would require certain actions to be taken by port authorities or terminal operators in a very short period of time.

Those are the types of events that we are looking at. It is a twofold test, and there is a high threshold. It is meant to be a high threshold. It is not meant to be an order that is used lightly or without appropriate due diligence, urgency and a risk of significant harm.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Do you feel, then, that this is a tool that would be helpful to have in your tool box? When you look back or forward at scenarios that may develop, would this be helpful in addressing that?

[Sonya Read]

This is put forward as a legislative proposal to be part of the suite of tools that can be used to address the possibility of imminent harm to national security or the supply chain.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Looking forward, you mentioned geopolitical tensions. Obviously, the world is a much more dangerous place than it was even a year ago. Would you see this as a good tool to have in the event the government is required to use this provision to protect national security?

[Sonya Read]

I'm sorry. I may have misspoken.

I meant national economic security or the security of the supply chain.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

All right. I'll leave it at that for now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Muys.

Next, I have Ms. Koutrakis and Mr. Rogers.

Ms. Koutrakis.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question has been answered. I received the clarification I needed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Okay.

We'll vote on NDP-16.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

(Clause 122 as amended agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

(On clause 123)

Go ahead, Mr. Kurek.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the opportunity to get into debate on this bill and how important it is, especially when it comes to national transportation infrastructure.

I would, however—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Go ahead on a point of order, Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's just so I'm not interrupting him when he's in the full glory of his remarks.

In the past, when we've done line by line, we first introduced the amendment we were going to be debating. Before Mr. Kurek gets into debating the many merits of NDP-16.1, I would add that I believe it's been dealt with. I don't know if that's indeed what he was going to be debating, but I think that's the next amendment coming up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

No, we're actually on clause 123. Then there is clause 124, and then clause 125 is NDP-16.1.

We're discussing whether or not clause 123 will carry.

I believe Mr. Kurek has the floor for clause 123.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

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—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Mr. Kurek, the motion is already deemed to have been moved. Otherwise, you can't speak on anything. You are speaking to the motion that you moved, just to be clear.

Thank you, Mr. Kurek.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I appreciate the clarification.

As I was sharing, the story that Dawn told me was very clear about how, over the last number of years, she ran a successful small business. A lot of the work she did was in a greenhouse and in a 10- or 15-acre garden. I asked her if I could share this story, and she encouraged me to do so.

Over the last number of years, in the midst of resiliency planning for her farm operation, she found herself in a situation where there were some unexpected things that happened in her personal life. As a result, there were some unexpected costs that called into question some of that long-term planning that so many farmers work diligently to undertake, and just a few small life things.... What ended up happening was that she was able to make it work, and she worked very diligently to try to continue the farm that she was so proud to have been carrying on in the name of her mother.

However, what she found, over the last number of years, was that it came to the point where there were two factors that made it untenable for her to continue her operation. She outlined to me how, despite her efforts and the work that she put in, the extra hours, to endeavour to make the math work on being able to continue her family farm operation, she just couldn't, in fact, do it.

She described two specific factors that added to the costs of her monthly operations. There were two line items that had grown almost exponentially. The first was interest rates. Because of some of the personal circumstances she had found herself in, she ended up having to take on some additional liabilities in terms of debt. Over the time since she did that, the rising interest rates made it so that the cost of borrowing increased dramatically. Although I could certainly talk at length about that situation and the reasons for that, I want to ensure that we're relevant to the discussion at hand.

The second item she shared with me was how the carbon tax had increased the cost of her farm operation to the tune of thousands of dollars a month. In the summer, she could make it work. She was able to ensure that she kept things at a minimum, and whatnot. Chair, I'm not sure if you've noticed this, but what has generally been the case in our country is that it gets cold in the winter. In order to have high-quality food grow in a cold climate, which we face here in our country, you need to have greenhouses, and greenhouses have to be heated. The natural gas costs associated with Dawn being able to heat her greenhouses became untenable, to the tune of thousands of extra dollars a month.

Despite her best efforts, and despite the fact that she had done everything that she could to make her operation work, because of the carbon tax and higher interest rates, we saw the demise of this operation that she was so very proud of.

I want to talk about the Minister of Agriculture's involvement in this, because it is very key, but before I jump into that, I would like to emphasize something that I found really moving as I was hearing this story. As I chatted with Dawn on the phone, I could hear the emotion in her voice, and how much she cared about the work that she had done for years, providing high-quality food. For those around the table who might not be aware, direct sale often means that she would attend farmers' markets, so people got used to seeing Dawn at farmers' markets in the Didsbury area, the community that her greenhouse was located near.

What ended up happening was that, although she was incredibly proud of the greenhouse that was named after her mother, instead of putting her own farm's logo on her trailer and vehicle, Dawn put a statement on her vehicle and on the trailer she pulled. It said, “No farmers, no food”. That speaks to how seriously Dawn takes feeding the world and, in her case, the folks in central Alberta.

I talked about the number of farmers in Canada, and I'll get into more specifics around the Alberta circumstances. Of course, there is a lot I can say about Battle River—Crowfoot and the good people I represent in east-central Alberta.

What I would like to emphasize here is that part of this story has a real tragic twist.

The Minister of Agriculture has been asked a whole host of questions about Bill C-234 and its impact on agriculture and agricultural production, and about the needed carve-out. Certainly, Conservatives—and most parliamentarians, actually, including a number of Liberals at different points in time—support this important exemption from the carbon tax to ensure Canadians have affordable food. I have heard the Minister of Agriculture, as I'm sure we all have, stand up and say that he talks to farmers all the time and hasn't heard concerns related to Bill C-234, which, Mr. Chair, I've known to not be an accurate statement the whole way along.

Here's what I find truly tragic. Only a few days before I spoke with Dawn, she was on a Zoom call with the Minister of Agriculture. She shared her concerns directly. She outlined the impact of the carbon tax. As opposed to being empathetic and understanding.... At that point in time, Dawn shared with the Minister of Agriculture how she was speaking not only for herself but also on behalf of so many others she cares for deeply: those who provide the high-quality food we need as Canadians, the food that our people from coast to coast to coast need. There was a lack of empathy. There was an unwillingness to understand, to the point where she got frustrated with the Minister of Agriculture. At the point where it was acknowledged that there was a problem, he offered to reach out to help her situation. It was in that moment that Dawn said, “No, I don't want help just in my situation. We have to help all farmers. We have to help all Canadians.”

Mr. Chair, the reason why I share Dawn's story about the one farm that no longer exists because of the carbon tax is that it speaks to how, as Canadians, we have the opportunity to be leaders, whether it's for the other 189,873 farms that are left, for approximately 41,500 farms in the case of Alberta, or for approximately 4,715 farms in the case of Battle River—Crowfoot. My family and I, for five generations now, are proud to be a part of that farming legacy.

We talk about how frustrating it was that the senators were delaying. What ended up being the case was gutting the passage of Bill C-234 and taking out some of the most valuable aspects of that. They made the amendments. This motion is so very relevant, because, as the bill goes back to the House, there will likely be changes and it will go back to the Senate.

Mr. Chair, we need this carve-out. We have the potential as a country to feed our people with high-quality, affordable food, yet we have politics that seem to get in the way.

I want to get into some of the details, in a moment, of what exactly the situation is on farms. However, Mr. Chair, I think it's important to mention something. This is not the first conversation around carbon tax carve-outs we've had, even this fall.

Coming into the fall sitting of Parliament, we were only a few weeks into it when we saw the Prime Minister doing what seemed to be a hastily arranged press conference up on the third floor of this very building, where he announced that a few Canadians—just a few—would receive a break from the carbon tax. He proposed that there would be an exemption granted to Canadians who heat with home heating oil. Home heating oil is the reality, especially in certain parts of the country more than others. I know that in Alberta, where we have an abundance of clean, green Canadian natural gas, we don't have as much heating oil, although there is some. However, what we saw the Prime Minister undertake was to give a carve-out to a small group of Canadians who were impacted by the carbon tax. It worked out to be about 3% of households in this country that got that carve-out.

Now, when one looks at the cruel, crass politics of the situation, one sees that the Prime Minister's poll numbers were in an absolute nosedive, specifically in Atlantic Canada, where so many of the Liberal MPs were, in some cases—and I have no doubt because they said very publicly that this was the case—facing immense political pressure. As the Prime Minister's poll numbers were falling through the floor, action had to be taken. We heard some just astounding statements. For example, Minister Hutchings said, if you don't vote Liberal, don't expect an exemption. My goodness, how absolutely embarrassing that you would only serve people who vote for you. Certainly, I would hope that members around this table wouldn't, if somebody came up to their office door, turn that person away because that person didn't cast a ballot or didn't put the X beside the right person. It's an absolute embarrassment.

We heard the Minister of Northern Affairs say in this conversation that he had never heard that this was a concern. Minister Boissonnault, the only minister from Alberta—and one of only two Liberal MPs from Alberta—said that he simply wasn't concerned about the costs that were associated with the carbon tax. We saw that as the government was desperate because of the costs being imposed because of the carbon tax, it created this carve-out for 3% of the population. The other 97%, Mr. Chair, were not so lucky.

As we came into the fall session, there was this understanding that the Prime Minister was willing to engage in carve-outs because it was a de facto admission that his carbon tax was costing Canadians. When it came to home heating oil, it was costing Canadians significantly to be able to heat their homes.

What's interesting is that, in the conversation surrounding the carve-out, we had a political firestorm that ensued. In fact, we had economists from across the country saying publicly that it's obvious that this is an admission that the carbon tax and pricing is not working, an admission that it costs Canadians more than it's worth. In fact, there was one headline that even suggested, “The carbon tax is dead”. It's just a matter of time now.

What is interesting is that, in the follow-up to that initial carve-out, we saw the environment minister, convicted climate activist Steven Guilbeault—and I say “convicted” because he was convicted of a crime while he was a climate activist in a previous career—make the statement that if there were any more carve-outs, he could expect to resign. Although some of us certainly wouldn't be disappointed if that was the case, I found it very interesting how, all of sudden, we saw a doubling down on a whole host of things, specifically the carbon tax. Now that there was a 3% carve-out, the Prime Minister was unwilling to go any further and was unwilling to see that there would be a willingness for some common sense when many Canadians are...at this point in time when what we have is an affordability crisis. I hear about it all the time. We had so many examples of where there was just a tone deafness, an unwillingness for there to even be a conversation that maybe the carbon tax was, in fact, simply not worth the cost.

When it comes to the conversation around home heating, of course that is a key part of this larger conversation, but then we had Bill C-234. This bill would provide practical relief for farmers. I mentioned that I will get into the on-farm dynamics of this, because there's a lot of misinformation or what I would suspect is simply a misunderstanding, and I'll use some examples from question period and what the Prime Minister referenced here today. We saw how the environment minister was so quick to demand that the Prime Minister and the rest of the Liberal Party follow his lead by not allowing any further what have come to be known as carve-outs.

Conservatives believe fully that we need to axe the carbon tax, and we are calling for that to be the case. Pierre Poilievre, as leader of Canada's Conservatives, has made it very clear that we look forward to being able to fight a carbon tax election, when Canadians will be able to make that choice.

However, when it comes to practical relief that could be provided now, my colleague Ben Lobb—a member of Parliament who's been around here for a little while, not too long, but a little while—put forward Bill C-234. It was not the first time that this had been introduced. In fact, when the Prime Minister called the unnecessary election in 2021, when he had promised he wouldn't, we were still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that basically ended up returning Parliament almost exactly to the way it was prior to that point in time—

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

We have Dr. Lewis on a point of order.