Madam Speaker, it is good to see you back and good to see my colleague on the opposite side. We have had many conversations over the years, and I appreciate the opportunity to have that discussion again tonight.
One of the things that happened in this particular summer was a tour. There were ag journalists from all over the world at a conference in Alberta. One of the options they had was to tour around to different places. One of the tours was in my riding, looking at irrigation and ag producers. It was a privilege to be invited along with this busload of journalists from around the world, and I was sitting beside one from Montreal, one from Iowa in the U.S. corn belt, and another one from Brazil. We talked about agriculture. Of course, because I am from the government, the journalists asked me about the policies of how it works.
I could not resist asking about carbon tax. The journalist from Montreal suggested that they did not have a carbon tax because they have cap and trade. I asked, “What about the second carbon tax, the clean fuel standard?” He said, “Oh, we do not have that in Quebec.” I said that he might want to check on that. The journalist from the U.S. said, “carbon tax?” She was not familiar with it in their country. I said, “When we stop at producers' places, why not ask them about the carbon tax?”
We are not talking about the diesel. We are not talking about rebates, because these ag producers do not get a rebate. These people are not the rebate people. We are talking about the power for electricity on pumps for irrigation. Seventy per cent of the irrigation in the country is in my riding. That is 4% of the arable land in Alberta producing over 20% of the ag GDP.
When we stopped, The U.S. journalist asked a farmer whether they pay carbon tax. The farmer said, “I have bills I can show you. I have paid $100,000 in carbon tax alone.” Afterwards, the journalists were surprised. The one from Iowa said they did not know how we compete in the world market. They are happy in the U.S. because we cannot compete with them because they do not have that carbon tax. The one from Montreal said that they do not have a carbon tax either. I said, “Check on it. You have the clean fuel standard, and that is in your ag sector.” The one from Brazil said, “I do not know how you are going to compete on the international market.”
That is the challenge with our irrigation: the carbon tax on the electricity. I am not talking about diesel. These guys do not get rebates. Seventy per cent of irrigation is in my riding, and the farmers are paying huge carbon tax on the electricity. This is a challenge to stay competitive. This is a challenge to stay in the ag business as producers, and it is going to triple. The ag producers do not understand how they can stay in the business.
We are talking about innovative agricultural producers. We are talking about carbon sequestration in their crops. We are talking about the way they are developing their crops with zero tillage. A lot of the activities they are doing are world-leading, but the carbon tax is killing our food security because these ag producers cannot sustain this level of tax on the electricity it takes for their irrigation pumps to work. It is problematic for food security in this country.