Mr. Speaker, I am rising to follow up on a question I asked the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food about the troubling implications for family farms and the ability to pass family farms on to the next generation.
For generations, family farms have fed Canadians and the world, and those farms are passed on, with great pride, from one generation to the next. Generally, if a farm is passed from a father or mother to a child, it is passed on a tax-deferred basis. Unfortunately, under the current rules, if it is passed to an extended family member, such as a niece or nephew, it is fully taxed under the capital gains rules. The result has been that, over the last 20 years, more than 57,000 family farms have been lost. That hurts family farmers in my community, such as Steve Cooper, who brought this issue to my attention in the local media. He wanted to pass his farm on to a nephew but could not do so because of the dramatic tax implications.
The problem will only compound in the future because right now the average Canadian farmer is in their mid-fifties, and fewer than one in 12 has a successor under the age of 40. This is data from Statistics Canada. That means that farmers are getting older; they do not have a next generation, potentially, in line; and they are struggling with the succession of their farm. The result is that we are losing family farms in my community and across Canada.
I asked the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to consider looking into the rules around the Income Tax Act to change this so family farms could be passed on to the next generation in an extended family, without tax implications. The response at the time was an acknowledgement of the problem and a commitment to speak with the Minister of Finance and to come back to the House to inform us.
I see that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance is here today, so I would like to ask him if those conversations have been had, what the result of those conversations was, and whether they have a solution or proposal that they will bring forward to the House in the fall sitting to address this issue.