Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to join the debate today on the concurrence of the 18th report of the Standing Committee of Agriculture and Agri-Food on food price inflation.
I find it very strange that the Liberal member would talk about tying up the House's time on things he thinks are not important. When I was in my riding of Regina—Lewvan and our communities all summer, one of the major topics was the price of food and how it is getting harder to make ends meet each day.
We know that taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up. It is time to have these discussions, and it is time for a carbon tax election. That is what Canadians want. Seventy per cent of Canadians think that the carbon tax should be axed. It is one of the major reasons costs are going up at our grocery stores.
We saw this in some of the comments made at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. As a member of the committee, I was able to partake in the meetings. Some of the comments especially focused on the carbon tax. One such comment was made by Mr. Ron Lemaire of the Canadian Produce Marketing Association. He reported that the greenhouse vegetable sector, for example, estimates that the carbon tax will have an annual cost on his operations of $22 million this year. This amount is projected to increase to as much as $100 million by 2030. What do members think that does to the price of vegetables in our grocery stores, if that is the cost being incurred by our vegetable growers across our country?
Another comment was made by Mr. Keith Currie of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. He noted that the carbon tax accounts for as much as 40% of energy bills in some agricultural sectors. He called for a time-limited and targeted exemption; he would like to see an exemption from the carbon tax.
Another thing that a lot of stakeholders talked about in our committee was the fact that they would love to see Bill C-234 passed, and that is the exemption from the carbon tax for heating barns for grain drying. This is something that our producers desperately need. Mr. Currie went on to say something about the mental health of our producers; the member from Saanich—Gulf Islands also talked about this. Can we imagine having to pay a bill that is ever-increasing and would eventually take millions of dollars out of our pockets? That is the pressure that our agriculture producers are facing.
One thing needing to be mentioned is that many members on the Conservative side come from family farms. The member who just spoke has family that has been in agriculture for generations. I grew up on a dairy and beef farm, and I have cousins who still ranch. These are not just random numbers. These are our family members and our constituents. That is why this is so important to the members on this side of the House, to the Conservative members of Parliament.
For a Liberal to say that this is just fluff and does not matter, that it is just a tactic, is actually quite insulting to the men and women who produce our food and put food on the table. The member should apologize for that comment.
I want to talk about the pressure that our men and women are facing in agriculture. What this brings to the forefront is that it is not just the carbon tax. As I hear all the time, it is also a tax on the tax. It is the GST being paid by our producers on top of the carbon tax. The PBO has done some reports on this, which say that $486 million in GST will be paid on the carbon tax. By 2030, $1 billion a year will be paid just in GST on the carbon tax. The carbon tax is going to blow a $30-billion to $40-billion hole in our economy, and the agriculture sector is going to account for the lion's share of that money. There is pressure.
My colleague said it well, and it is worth repeating: If we tax the farmer who produces the food, the trucker who buys the food and the stores that sell the food, it only stands to reason that we are going to tax each and every Canadian who goes to the store and buys the food. This is what as common sense would indicate.
That is the point we are trying to get at. We know that the sellout NDP members have voted for the carbon tax 24 times. Because they were in trouble in the Elmwood—Transcona by-election, the leader of the NDP had a come-to-Jesus moment and said, “No, we are not against the carbon tax.” Now he says that they want to vote against it.
Now we are going to see another flip-flop because the NDP eked out a win in one of its seven safest seats in Canada, where I think they lost 20 points. That flip-flop was strictly to play politics to try to fool Canadians, just like the ripping up of the supply and confidence agreement. Can members believe that? It is two flip-flops in two days. I am surprised the hon. NDP leader did not pull something. First he was for the government and then he was against the government, and on Wednesday he will be for the government again. It is hard to keep track. Now the NDP in B.C. is also against the carbon tax. It is unbelievable how many times people have changed their minds on the carbon tax over the last week in NDP land.
I have a great deal of respect for the men and women in our agriculture sector. They do the hard work of feeding Canadians and feeding the world. One thing we hear from some of the Liberal members on the agriculture committee is that we need to do more. Why do some of the Liberal and NDP members on this committee not give the agriculture sector credit for what it has done so well already? Saskatchewan, which has done so much to create environmental sustainability in the agriculture sector, uses rotational grazing for cattle and crop rotation, with different crops taking out different nutrients from the soil. Western Canada pioneered that. We have also done great work when it comes to zero tillage and straight head combining, where there is less machinery on the field.
There have been so many innovations that we should be proud of as the Canadians who represent the men and women in the agriculture sector, and we should take them to the world. Imagine exporting our great agricultural practices to other countries around the world so they catch up. That would lower world emissions. If we want to tackle environmental sustainability, we should talk about some of the good things we are doing on the world stage instead of always acting like we should be embarrassed by our agriculture and energy sectors.
We know that right now we do not have any champions for agriculture in the current government. We have talked about this many times in Saskatchewan, where agriculture is still the backbone of the economy. Why is it that every time Liberals come into government, their agriculture minister sits at the kids' table?
We know that one of the biggest problems with the government's ag policy is that it is being made in the health and environment departments, not in the agriculture department. It is being made by people who have never been on a farm. That is why we see continuous increases, whether it is in red tape, taxes or policies, like wanting to reduce fertilizer use by 35%. Do members know how much that is going to lower yields for our producers? Talk about putting more mental strain on them. We are hand-tying them on what they do best by telling them what they can and cannot put on their fields. That is reminiscent of socialist Russia, which I think some members in the Liberals would enjoy seeing. The activist Minister of Environment has said that he is a proud socialist. He would love to tell agriculture producers what they should and should not be doing with their own land.
To address how we can lower food prices immediately, we can axe the tax and make sure no one is paying a tax on a tax by taking GST off the carbon tax. We can allow our producers to use technology and the great practices of farming, not tie their hands by telling them how much fertilizer to put on their fields. First and foremost, what we need is a common-sense Conservative government that will not have an ag minister sitting at the kids' table and that will bring policy forward that helps instead of hurts our producers. That is what the Conservatives will deliver to Canadians when we have the carbon tax election that 70% of Canadians want.