John Barlow

[Carbon Pricing, June 19th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, big spending and big deficits by the Liberals have accomplished one thing; big inflation. Actually, they have accomplished two things as Canadian food bank use has never been higher because Canadians cannot afford to put food on the table.

Here are the consequences of the accomplishments of Liberal inflation and carbon taxes: In 2021, about two million Canadians accessed a food bank every single month. That more than doubled to five million last year. This year, a staggering eight million Canadians are accessing a food bank every single month.

How much more will Canadians have to pay to put food on the table when the Liberals implement a second carbon tax?

[Health of Animals Act, June 15th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.

[Health of Animals Act, June 15th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank all of my colleagues in this House who have spoken in support of my private member's bill, which would amend the Health of Animals Act to protect biosecurity on farms.

Many of the comments that have been raised in the speeches tonight, and I have heard it online, are that there have not been occasions where diseases have been spread as a result of protesters. That just simply is not case. There was an outbreak of rotavirus in Quebec when protesters were found at a hog operations in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec. Mink farms in Ontario had an outbreak of canine distemper when protesters were on the farms.

This is happening, and we cannot allow this type of activity to continue if we want to protect the biosecurity not only on farms but of our food security across Canada and around the world.

This came about from an instance that happened in my riding. I have spoken about this in the House previously. I received a call from farmers near Fort Macleod, who woke up one morning, checked on their free-range turkey farm and found 40 protesters in the barn trying to take their animals. The stress this put the Tschetter family under is incredible, and it still goes on today.

We have heard that from farmers across Canada, who have had instances where protesters have been on their farms. They ask, “Why me?” They ask what they did to attract this sort of activity. I received many calls from farmers across Canada asking if this was open season on farmers and whether they were not even safe on their own property. There are the mental health impacts on farmers but also the financial risk to the agriculture industry and consumers across the country.

We are seeing this take place right now across Canada, and certainly in the Fraser Valley and across the Prairies with the outbreak of avian flu. My colleagues have talked about the mental health impact this has on farmers when they are worried about protesters, but we are also dealing with euthanizing thousands and thousands of animals.

B.C. chicken farmers are having to euthanize complete barns of their animals. This is happening across western Canada and some parts of central Canada and eastern Canada. I cannot overstate the impact this has on these farm families, who do everything they possibly can to take care of these animals and who follow very strict biosecurity protocols to protect their operations.

One cannot imagine how difficult it is to ask CFIA to come in when there is a positive test of avian flu and a farmer is told he has to put down all of his animals he worked so hard to raise from chicks to adulthood.

It would be similar if we had an outbreak of African swine fever. The pork industry said that an outbreak of African swine fever would be a $48-billion impact on that industry. It would wipe out the hog industry in Canada. We have seen it in China, which had to euthanize more than a million animals as a result of African swine fever.

We have very strict biosecurity protocols in place for these very reasons. Unfortunately, these protesters who come on to private property in many cases just do not understand the consequences of them going from farm to farm, operation to operation, and possibly spreading those viruses and animal-borne diseases from one farm to the next. The consequences of that activity could be disastrous, on a scale we have never seen before in Canada.

I certainly do not want to see another outbreak of something similar to BSE, be it African swine fever or foot and mouth disease. We are already seeing the implications of avian flu.

The other comment that has been made is that this is the ag-gag bill. That simply is not the case, and I cannot stress this enough. This would not stop protesters from protesting on public land outside of the farm, and it certainly would not stop whistle-blowers or employees on a farm from reporting issues they see that are not up to standard. In fact, those employees and the farm families themselves have a moral and legal obligation to report any poor activity that does not meet our standards.

I want to thank all of my colleagues in this House for supporting this legislation, supporting farm families and supporting our agriculture industry. I look forward to discussing this further at committee.

[Carbon Pricing, June 6th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, here is the reality of the carbon tax on Canadian farmers. An average 5,000-acre farm would pay $150,000 a year in carbon taxes. Alberta ranchers who use gas co-ops are paying 60% more in federal carbon taxes than they are for the actual natural gas. Forty-four per cent of fruit and vegetable producers are selling at a loss. Food bank use is up a stunning 60%, with more than eight million Canadians using them every single month. This is before the knock-out blow of a second carbon tax.

Again, how much more will Canadians have to pay to feed their families when the Liberals implement a second carbon tax?

[Carbon Pricing, June 6th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the carbon tax is fuelling food inflation as grocery prices are up another 10%, costing Canadian families another $1,000 a year just to put food on the table. Canada's Food Price Report predicts that food prices will go up a stunning 34% over the next two years.

That is not even the bad news. That does not include the implications of the Liberals' second carbon tax, a carbon tax that would add 61¢ a litre to the price of gas, which will increase the cost of food production and transportation.

How much more will Canadians have to pay to feed their families when the Liberals implement a second carbon tax?

[Carbon Pricing, May 30th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are doubling down on their failed scam with a second carbon tax and Canadians are paying the price.

Carbon tax 1 drove up the cost of feed, fuel and fertilizer, driving up the cost of food more than $1,000 per family. Higher carbon taxes mean higher food bank use. Last year, more than five million families were using a food bank every month. With a higher carbon tax, the use of food banks has gone up a staggering 60%. More than eight million Canadians are using a food bank every single month.

My question is for the Prime Minister. How many Canadians are going to use a food bank when he implements the carbon tax 2.0?

[Carbon Pricing, May 29th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, this Prime Minister is dropping the hammer on Canadian families who are already struggling to put food on the table. He is crushing Canadians with yet another carbon tax on July 1.

Here is what is going to happen: Canadian farmers are already facing $150,000 a year in carbon taxes on carbon tax 1. Carbon tax 2 will make farming financially impossible. It will also increase diesel prices 25¢ a litre, further driving up the cost of food. Eight million Canadians are already using a food bank every single month. The Liberals should be embarrassed. Why does this Prime Minister not realize that when the government increases taxes, farmers go bankrupt and Canadians go hungry?

[Business of Supply, May 18th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, it is frustrating that we are here again talking about the opioid crisis, which I think we have had debates on many times in my years as a member of Parliament. It just seems that after eight years of the Prime Minister, everything feels broken. Life costs more, work does not pay, housing costs have doubled and the Prime Minister divides to control the people. Worst of all, crime and chaos, drugs and disorder rage in our streets.

Nowhere is this worse than the opioid overdose crisis, which has expanded so dramatically in the last three years. In fact, during the time we have debated this motion today, another 20 Canadians across this country have died as the result of an overdose death. These are numbers, certainly, but they are also brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, friends and loved ones we have lost as a result of this opioid crisis.

What I find most frustrating is that it seems only the Conservatives are fighting for change, a change from the failed experiment that is safe supply, which is destroying families, devastating our towns and cities and ripping families apart. Any metric for any program that has seen a 300% increase in overdose deaths cannot be viewed as a success. That is not science-based. That is ideologically based, and we have to change. We have to rip the veil off the myth that is safe supply.

Our nation is struggling with this ongoing opioid crisis. More than 35,000 Canadians have died an overdose death since 2016. That is unacceptable. Following eight years of the Liberal government, those numbers are only getting worse, and they are getting worse where these policies are embraced the most, in provinces like British Columbia. Many of my colleagues from that province have asked questions and have spoken today, voicing their frustration at what is going on in their ridings and their communities. British Columbia is suffering as a result of the policies of a Liberal federal government and an NDP provincial government.

I know that I am not the only one in the House, as my colleagues have lost friends and loved ones to overdose deaths and suicide, which is why the Conservatives are asking for and demanding an evidence-based approach to address this issue. I had the honour of co-chairing a Conservative working group where we focused on the opioid crisis, and we spoke to experts not only across Canada but around the world. In speaking with those stakeholders, the one thing that was clear was that funding, or lack of funding, is not the issue; the funding is there. The issue is priority, and the priority needs to be on treatment and recovery, and metrics to measure that recovery.

The term “safe supply”, as many of my colleagues have mentioned tonight, describes a policy that is one of the best marketing schemes of all time. There is nothing safe about injecting one's body with the toxic poison that is these drugs. It does not matter what it is; this is not meant to be ingested or injected. Consuming these powerful drugs only leads to a spiral of addiction and despair.

Today, the Liberal government is only exacerbating this crisis. It has spent almost $80 million of taxpayer money subsidizing these drugs, which are flooding our streets with addiction and crime. In this year's budget, the Liberals have announced another $100 million to go to the safe supply. The consequences of this are stark: free drugs, subsidized by the taxpayer. Decriminalizing cocaine, heroin and fentanyl has supercharged the opioid crisis.

I want to tell members a quick story about why this hits so close to home for me. It is about one of the most important people in my entire life. I had to break into her apartment, and I found her on the floor overdosed on fentanyl. It is a picture I want no one in the House to ever have to see, what this drug had done to this person. When I took her to the hospital, perhaps I was naive, as I just expected the doctors and nurses to put her in recovery and treatment right there. However, their answer was, “Yes, she overdosed on fentanyl. She's going to be okay tomorrow, and we will be releasing her in the morning. You can put her on a waiting list of six weeks for a recovery program.” Now, had there not been friends and family who made sure that she was okay, and she has recovered, I cannot imagine if she went back on the street and back on fentanyl.

The focus and the dollars need to go to recovery and treatment, not perpetuating the opioid crisis, as we have seen. I find it very frustrating when the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions keeps saying that the government has saved 42,000 people from overdose. No, it has not. It has prolonged what is likely inevitable. If we keep them on a safe supply, they will overdose eventually, more than likely.

The article in the National Post by Adam Zivo has to be an eye-opener, a shock to Canadians, who are seeing what is actually happening on the ground. Canadian families have to stand up. We cannot be intimidated any longer. Our voices need to be heard. This is the easy way out, and it is clearly not working. Canadian families need to say enough is enough, that they want their streets and their loved ones back.

There is hope. Provinces like Alberta have studied this and realized that safe supply was not the answer. They warned that safe supply could cause the next wave of the addiction crisis. That has happened, and they were right. Between 2021 and 2022, because of the system that Alberta has implemented, drug overdoses have declined by 46%. It invested in 10,000 detox treatment centres that are serving 29,000 Albertans every single year. Imagine the difference we could make if provinces followed that similar model of diverting the funds from safe supply, which is not safe, and focus it on recovery and prevention. Conservatives are asking and demanding that the Liberal government dismantle this failed experiment that it calls “safe supply”.

Addicts are diverting their safe supply. They are selling those drugs on our playgrounds and in our schoolyards, getting the next generation addicted. They are using the proceeds of that revenue and buying fentanyl, cocaine and heroin, which are being decriminalized on the streets. I cannot believe I am saying that.

There is hope. There is hope to end the hurt and get Canadians the treatment and recovery they deserve, but we have to end this failed experiment of safe supply. It is simply not working, and we have to change it now.

[Carbon Pricing, May 18th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, here is the problem: The minister has no idea what impact carbon tax 2.0 is going to have on the cost of food: the cost to farmers, the cost to transport that food, or the cost for Canadians to actually buy that food.

The first carbon tax is already sending Canadians to the food banks in shocking numbers. The number of trips to the food bank is up 60% from 2003. That is eight million Canadians going to the food bank every single month.

How much will Canadians have to pay to put food on the table when the Liberals implement carbon tax 2.0?

[Carbon Pricing, May 18th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I would to encourage the Minister of Environment to go talk to a farmer, because I have not spoken to a single one who supports the first carbon tax, let alone carbon tax number two.

The agriculture minister admitted yesterday that she has no idea what impact carbon tax 2.0 will have on farmers or the cost of food. Here is what we do know: When the Liberals triple their first carbon tax, fuel goes up 41¢ a litre, diesel goes up 15¢ a litre, and the cost of food goes up 34%. When they implement carbon tax number two, the cost on fuel goes up 61¢ a litre and diesel 25¢ a litre.

Could the Minister of Agriculture confirm that coloured farm fuel would be exempt from carbon tax 2.0?