44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 29, 2023 02:00PM
- Nov/29/23 4:01:21 p.m.
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I declare the motion carried.
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- Nov/29/23 4:01:50 p.m.
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The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion of the member for Carleton relating to the business of supply.
The question is as follows. Shall I dispense?
Some hon. members: No.
[Chair read text of motion to House]
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- Nov/29/23 4:14:01 p.m.
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I declare the motion defeated.
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The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-275, under Private Members' Business.
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- Nov/29/23 4:26:01 p.m.
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I declare the motion carried.
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- Nov/29/23 4:26:10 p.m.
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I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded divisions, Government Orders will be extended by 51 minutes.
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- Nov/29/23 4:28:32 p.m.
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Yesterday, the House leader of the official opposition raised a point of order regarding Ways and Means Motion No. 19, arguing that under the rule of anticipation, the ways and means motion was out of order. He quoted extensively from House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, in that regard.
After his intervention, other members indicated that they would return to the House to offer their own observations on this complex point of order.
Given that we have seen the matter of similar bills being raised several times over the past few years, the Chair believes the current situation would benefit from a thorough explanation and a comprehensive ruling.
However, I do not believe there are sufficient grounds at the moment to prevent the House from considering the ways and means motion, the purpose of which is to allow taxation legislation to be brought in. Until such time as I can return to the House with a more detailed ruling, I will allow proceedings on Ways and Means Motion No. 19 to continue. If the motion is concurred in, I will allow the bill based thereon to subsequently be brought in and for debate to begin on it. I intend to return to the House on the matter of the similarity between bills as soon as possible.
I thank members for their attention.
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- Nov/29/23 4:28:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, pursuant to subsection 4(5) of the Public Service Employment Act and Standing Order 111.1, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, a certificate of nomination and biographical notes for the proposed appointment of Marie-Chantal Girard to the position of president of the Public Service Commission of Canada for a term of seven years.
I request that the nomination and biographical notes be referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.
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- Nov/29/23 4:29:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8)(a), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 14 petitions. These returns will be tabled in an electronic format.
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- Nov/29/23 4:29:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth interim report of the Special Committee on the Canada-People's Republic of China Relationship, entitled “The Chinese Communist Party's Overseas Police Service Stations”.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.
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- Nov/29/23 4:30:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, entitled “Restoring Full Accountability for Resources and Governance of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission”.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.
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- Nov/29/23 4:30:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans submitted our supplemental report on the study of allocation of resources to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission because we are concerned about the persisting conflicts of interest and dysfunction caused by Canada's machinery of government structure for the commission.
The conflicts of interest have resulted in the Government of Canada failing to fully deliver Canada's contributions for the commission's essential work of protecting and conserving the waters and fisheries of the Great Lakes. This debacle is a national embarrassment and could have been dealt with back in April 2022 when the Prime Minister was sent a briefing note seeking a decision that could have fixed the machinery of government misalignment and resulting conflicts of interest.
Conservatives call on the Prime Minister to fix the machinery of government, eliminate the conflicts of interest, reaffirm Canada's commitment to the commission and ensure the Great Lakes are protected for future generations.
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Madam Speaker, it is truly a great honour for me to present, in both official languages, the 13th report of the Standing Committee on International Trade in relation to Bill C-57, an act to implement the 2023 free trade agreement between Canada and Ukraine.
The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.
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Madam Speaker, I move that the first report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, presented to the House on Wednesday, February 2, 2022, be concurred in.
I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex.
I want to concur in the report from the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food on food security that looked at processing capacity in Canada with a particular focus on food security. I believe there is some very pertinent information in the report, which I would encourage all members of the House to take the opportunity to read if they have not done so.
There are a couple of things in this report that I found interesting on how things change quickly. For example, in the government response to our report, there is a line that says, “The Government recognizes that the Report focuses on ensuring that a secure supply of food will be available to Canadians”. Budget 2019 states that “one in eight Canadian households currently experience food insecurity, meaning that they are without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food.”
Now, that was in 2019, here we are in 2023, and that number is no longer one in eight, that number is now one in five. One in five Canadians are skipping meals because they cannot afford to put nutritious and healthy Canadian-produced food on their table. I think that is a statistic for all of us in the House that shows the devastating impact that Liberal government policies have had on everyday Canadians who are just trying to feed their families and make ends meet, pay their bills and carry on with their lives.
The focus of this report, and why I want to highlight it today, is about food security or, more specifically, food insecurity. I cannot help but go back to the debate we had yesterday on Bill C-234, which was a common-sense Conservative legislation that would enhance food security for Canadians. It would be making farming more affordable for Canadians, which was a critical element of this study.
However, what was not included in the study, and I want to highlight that as well, is that, at the time, we did not have definitive data on the impact the carbon tax was having on Canadian agriculture. For example, the Parliamentary Budget Officer reported that Bill C-234 would save Canadian farmers close to $1 billion by 2030. We have a report here talking about food security. These elements would have been a very welcome part of the analysis and recommendations, as well as the impact that the carbon tax policy is having on Canadian farms and harming their ability to ensure that Canadians have nutritious and affordable food on their tables.
The report highlighted the importance of innovation and technology to ensure that modern Canadian agriculture could meet demand and meet its responsibilities. Again, with Bill C-234, we are highlighting the fact that there are no commercially available and viable alternatives for Canadian farmers across the country who are heating and cooling their barns and drying their grain, other than natural gas and propane. When I talk about the Parliamentary Budget Officer report and the fact that Bill C-234 would save Canadian farmers close to $1 billion on a carbon tax exemption, that is only on natural gas and propane.
Ironically, gas and diesel already have an exemption and so really, with Bill C-234, what we are trying to highlight is correcting an oversight, which I believe the Liberal government inadvertently made on its initial price on pollution climate change policy when it made an exemption on gas and diesel but did not include an exemption on natural gas and propane. I believe that when the Liberals developed their price on pollution legislation, or carbon tax, they did not include natural gas and propane because I think they just did not have a clear understanding of what agriculture is and the energy sources that the agriculture sector relies on every single day.
This report highlighted the importance of technology and innovation. Farmers are doing that every single day by ensuring that their farm buildings and barns are as energy efficient and state of the art as possible. In fact, one of the farm families who were here last week, who met with members of Parliament and actually participated in a bit of a rally on the Hill and at the Senate, just built a new state-of-the-art chicken barn in southern Alberta, at a cost of more than $3 million, but it is powered by natural gas because there is no other alternative in rural Alberta. Despite using a very clean-burning fuel, they paid $180,000 this past year just to heat and cool that barn. When the Prime Minister quadruples his carbon tax, they will be paying $480,000 a year just to heat and cool that barn.
I have that study here in my hand where the government provided its responses on the importance of food security. I guess I would ask if perhaps we should be updating this study because I am not sure how we can even talk about food security when farmers cannot remain in business.
This particular farmer, who built a new poultry barn, told me that he could not afford these higher taxes. He really only has two choices. One choice is to somehow pass on those additional costs to the consumer. Again, the question arises about food security when Canadians are already facing record-high food inflation. That is only going to get higher as the carbon tax increases. His other choice is to shut down, to close up his farm and his agriculture operation, which again would impact food prices because that means less product on the store shelves and higher prices.
Another interesting fact about this study is that it talked about a concern of Dr. Charlebois, a professor of food and supply chains at Dalhousie University. He mentioned that we are seeing a number of Canadian agriculture and agri-food businesses stop their investments in Canada and Canadian operations. He said, “They're now leaving the country because they can't capitalize any projects as a result of...increasing fees. The competitive environment here in Canada is not...attractive.”
As a result of the carbon taxes, red tape and bureaucracy highlighted in this study, we are seeing Canadian farms declare bankruptcy or shut down, but also that agri-food businesses are picking up and leaving to more friendly entrepreneurial and business jurisdictions. The result of that, again, as we were talking about in Bill C-234, is that they are carbon taxing Canadian farms out of business, but then they are forcing Canadian consumers to purchase food imported from foreign jurisdictions. That causes two problems. One, it has a significant carbon footprint through moving, for example, tomatoes or mushrooms all the way from Mexico into southern Ontario, or fruit and vegetables from California into Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Two, it is a problem when we use foreign-grown products that do not have the same environmental standards we have here in Canada. There is a real significant problem when those food products are cheaper to import from Mexico, Brazil or Venezuela, when we should be able to produce them right here in Canada.
I wanted to share some of those facts that are highlighted in this report and just how much it is apropos to what is going on with our discussion yesterday about Bill C-234. When this study was published, one in eight Canadians were facing food insecurity. Four years later, it is now one in five.
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- Nov/29/23 4:42:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will get the chance shortly to provide my comments with regard to the issue that the member is raising.
However, my question to him is specifically with respect to a strategy that has been developed by the Conservative Party of Canada, where it uses concurrence reports to prevent government legislation from being debated. We saw that extensively on the Canada-Ukraine trade agreement where the Conservatives ultimately ended up unanimously voting no to a Canada-Ukraine trade agreement. They used the same tactic where they would bring in concurrence reports in order to prevent government legislation from being debated and ultimately voted on unless there is time allocation. Why is the Conservative Party taking this day to once again use a stalling tactic to prevent government legislation from being debated?
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- Nov/29/23 4:43:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would encourage the member opposite to see what is going on across Canada. Last week, we had rallies from farmers in just about every province in the country, asking the government to understand the impact their policies are having on Canadian farmers and their ability to ensure that Canadians have affordable food on the table.
These are pertinent issues that are front of mind for Canadian farmers across the country. As an elected representative of a very agricultural, rural riding, I am just doing my job to ensure that the voices and the concerns of my constituents are being heard here on the floor of the House of Commons.
If the member opposite, who has a majority government with a Liberal-NDP coalition, cannot manage the daily organization of the House, I think they have some concerns within their own party. They have control of the House, and they should be able to manage their affairs.
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Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague talked a great deal about Bill C‑234 and the carbon tax.
I would like to talk about another issue, namely, the effects of climate change on farm products.
We can speak out against measures intended to mitigate climate change, but we still need to be aware of these changes. For example, I would like to draw his attention to the market gardening situation, especially in Quebec. I think the situation is the same in other parts of the country. This summer we had torrential rains that set all-time records. Last year, it was something else; it was aphids. In the past, aphids never got this far north, but with climate change, they are reaching areas further north and causing terrible damage. The year before that, there was a drought. The effects are significant.
Does my colleague agree that the government should urgently review insurance programs and the way that risk is shared for these farmers?
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Madam Speaker, I enjoy working with my very respected colleague on the agriculture committee. There is no question that Canadian farmers understand the changes in climate more than just about any Canadian, as they are certainly at the front lines of that. However, my argument today, in highlighting some of the issues in this report, and yesterday with Bill C-234, is that I do not believe that a carbon tax on Canadian agriculture and Canadian farmers is going to resolve issues when we are talking about the environment and climate change.
I have talked to many farmers. Paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in carbon tax does not allow them to invest in the new innovation and technology that will help reduce their carbon footprint and emissions.
I think we should be incentivizing farmers to do those things, not punishing them with a carbon tax.
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- Nov/29/23 4:46:45 p.m.
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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. We do some fantastic work. Most of it by far is by consensus. In this particular report, if members look at recommendations 2, 3 and 4, they specifically deal with the main thrust of this report, which is processing capacity.
If my colleague will remember, my main theme of questioning was around how we build resiliency in our local communities, especially when we have the unexpected, such as COVID-19 and whatever disasters might hit us in the future.
Could my hon. colleague share how we build that, because what we saw during the pandemic was that the supply chains are extremely vulnerable to systemic shocks?
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- Nov/29/23 4:47:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is great to have the agriculture band here and everyone here in the House today participating in this. I appreciate that.
I will just highlight one thing that I think will answer my colleague's question. During COVID, the federal government worked with the provinces to eliminate interprovincial trade barriers and allow harmonization of regulations, which allowed provincially certified processing plants to have the same standing as federally certified processing plants. It works very smoothly.
I think we can easily do that again, which would encourage those local processing plants to expand and grow and reduce our dependency on just three plants.
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