Committees of the House  Madam Speaker, it is a very real pleasure for me, as the NDP agriculture critic and a proud member of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food for almost six years, to be able to rise on this debate. Let us face it: The House of Commons does not get to review many agriculture committee reports.

Committees of the House  Madam Speaker, I enjoy serving on the agriculture committee with my colleague. I want to touch on recommendation 14 regarding skills development and the encouragement for training and re-skilling programs. During testimony we heard from UFCW, which represents many workers in our food and processing sectors.

Committees of the House  Madam Speaker, my colleague is another member of the agriculture committee. It is nice to see us bringing an agriculture report to the House for deliberation. In my time working with my colleague, she has been very outspoken on the grocery code of conduct. We have it here in the report as part of recommendation 16, and we did hear recently that Loblaw in particular has some problems with the code.

Committees of the House  Madam Speaker, actually, it is about time that the House of Commons finally looks at an agriculture report. We do not get the amount of airtime that many other committees do. This is a really important industry in Canada. I have been a proud member of the Standing Committee on Agriculture for almost six years now.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct the member. Today's debate is not about the carbon tax but about a motion to send a message to the Senate. We are getting this motion from the party of the Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy scandal. This is the party that has appointed failed candidates and party operatives to its ranks.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I will be supporting this motion because it is consistent with my third reading vote on Bill C-234. What the Conservatives are complaining about today is precisely the same behaviour they have used in previous Parliaments. They have used their Conservative senators to upend private members' bills in previous Parliaments.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, allow me to withdraw the comment and apologize. I want to recognize that the Bloc absolutely is in line with the NDP on abolishing the upper chamber. The member is right. In addition to Bill C-234, there is a very important bill that we were proud to support, Bill C-282.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, those are all good points. That is why I voted for the bill. We understood very clearly from committee hearings on this bill that there are no commercially viable alternatives. The problems with drying grain and with getting appropriate levels of feed because of future droughts, as I said in my speech, are going to multiply because this is the new reality that our farmers are facing.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, that is a great question. The Conservatives have suddenly taken it upon themselves to have a greater interest in the beautiful Vancouver Island area, but I would remind them that in my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, every single municipality I represent wrote to me asking that that bill get passed quickly.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, my colleague used the term “bagmen” and that is absolutely a legitimate term. They have used this appointed and unelected body to block bills from the democratically elected House. One only needs to look at our parliamentary history to see this is not a one-off situation.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, we do have selective amnesia in this place. I thank the member for Courtenay—Alberni for referencing that, because we lose sight of our history in this place. The member for Carleton has been an MP for 19 very long years. I know the Conservatives have spent millions of dollars on burnishing up his image, but he has a long history in this House of Commons.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today as we debate an opposition day motion the Conservatives decided to present to the House, which states: That the House call on the unelected Senate to immediately pass Bill C-234, An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, to remove the carbon tax on the farmers that feed Canadians, as passed by the democratically elected House.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, it has to be acknowledged that Bill C-234 would not have passed the House of Commons if not for the support of the NDP, the Bloc and the Green Party. However, I am amazed at the audacity of the Conservatives to lecture us on the Senate when this is a party that appoints failed candidates and party bagmen, and they have a history of using their own senators to block private members' bills in several parliaments past.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I am astounded at the sheer audacity of the Conservatives lecturing us on the Senate. After all, this is a party that has a history of appointing party bagmen and failed candidates. This is the party of Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy. This is the party that has 15 senators who still caucus with it every week, the only party, and this is a party that has their senators frequently block private members' bills in the past.

Government Business No. 30—Proceedings on Bill C-56  Madam Speaker, I want to question my friend from British Columbia on his last point because he was referencing the Scotiabank number. Just so everyone understands, could he confirm that that number also includes all of the spending by Canada's provincial governments and that a great amount of it was approved spending during the pandemic, which, if I recall correctly, many Conservatives also supported to keep businesses afloat so people could continue working.