Mr. Speaker, one of the continued frustrations that I routinely hear from agricultural stakeholders is that the government is focused on big cities while ignoring prairie farmers who feed Canada and the world.
It took the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Transport nearly a year to hold their first meeting with prairie farmers. The meeting occurred because the Minister of Transport was roundly criticized for having failed to invite farm groups to his round tables that informed his national transportation strategy. Considering the size of the agricultural sector and the jobs it creates, it is hard to believe that the invitation was lost in the mail.
While their visit to Saskatoon and the photo taken under the sign at the airport was a good start, visiting Saskatoon is a far cry from actually seeing a 5,000-acre farm and the technology that goes into modern-day farming, or witnessing a trail with 200 hopper cars being loaded at a grain elevator. Unfortunately, and despite this meeting, the government is not just ignoring this sector but is actually putting it at a disadvantage.
The new carbon tax, regardless of how it will be levied, will disproportionately hurt farmers, as they cannot pass the extra cost back to the end user. Every single segment of the supply chain can pass the cost of the carbon price down the line, except our producers. Farmers cannot sell their products to Asia at a higher price and not be disadvantaged relative to producers in the U.S.A.
On the issue of infrastructure, the Liberals have done nothing to help address the railroad bottlenecks in British Columbia. The infrastructure needed to make sure that the hopper cars bound for the Port of Vancouver do not get stuck waiting outside the Burnaby tunnel takes political will to get built. To date, we have seen a greater emphasis on curling rinks in Prince Edward Island than on building more fluid transport corridors.
Also, we have not heard anything from the government on the replacement of the hopper car fleet and whether it will be shippers or the government that will make the financial expenditure. The minister did make a number of commitments to farmers in his speech in Montreal on November 3, but failed to mention the future of that hopper car fleet.
I would like to ask a specific question of the minister. When will an announcement be made concerning the replacement of the grain hopper fleet?