44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 1, 2023 10:00AM
- Dec/1/23 12:00:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal Minister of Industry admitted he had not read the $15-billion Stellantis contract that will cost every taxpayer in Canada a thousand dollars in new taxes. Conservatives put forward a motion requiring the government to make contracts public. When one takes taxpayer money, transparency is expected. For 10 hours, Liberals have been obstructing the passage of this motion on a filibuster, hiding their bad deal.
Will the Liberals put transparency where their mouths are and release the contracts?
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- Dec/1/23 12:08:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I move that the 14th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, presented on Tuesday, May 17, 2022, be concurred in.
It is always a pleasure to be here, and I will say, if I am allowed to make this observation to the Chair, that question period was well run. It kept people on time.
Today I am going to talk about something incredibly important to the people of Northumberland—Peterborough South and those across Canada. We are talking about protecting Canada's food system. This report was concurred in when I was on the fabulous public accounts committee. Unfortunately, I have moved on to the finance committee, but I very much enjoyed my time on public accounts.
We are talking about something near and dear to my heart, which is food security. Of course, food security is always an issue, but it was highlighted during the great pandemic years, when Canadians were reliant on food and we saw, unfortunately, shortages in our grocery stores. It was not too long ago, even though in some ways it seems like a lifetime ago, that grocery stores were short on food.
It is incredibly important that we have food security in our country. One of the issues that will drive that is, of course, the carbon tax. The carbon tax is raising the cost of food. It is also driving food production offshore.
There are those in the House who may have been here back in 2019 when I was elected. I found out early on in my time as an MP, in 2019, that I had won the lottery. I remember a staffer coming to me and saying, “Mr. Lawrence, you won the lottery.” Of course, I had no idea what that meant at the time, but it meant that I had won the PMB lottery. I actually got number six.
We then had a very difficult decision to make, as there were lots of things that needed to be changed in 2019, and even more now in 2023, after eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, which is certainly not worth the cost. Our team did a search of various issues. Of course, a large portion of the Northumberland—Peterborough South economy is agriculture, so our farmers came to us and said the carbon tax was killing them. They presented me with bills for tens of thousands of dollars in carbon tax. That was back when the carbon tax was a lot lower than it is now, when it was only $20 a tonne. Now it is headed up to $80 a tonne next year. To everyone at home, that is quadruple what the current carbon tax is. We then said to farmers that they were right and we needed to provide relief. We would have loved to just axe the tax in a private member's bill, but that is not permissible because of the limited scope of a private member's bill.
I was told I have to split my time. I was hoping to have a lot more time to speak here, because food security is important and critical. My mentor from Winnipeg North has taught me the incredible importance of brevity in this House, but I will be splitting my time with the wonderful member for Calgary Shepard.
Farmers came to us and said the carbon tax was killing them, because not only is it potentially making them globally uncompetitive, but there are many markets where they simply cannot pass that cost on. The challenge is that it is making their farms unprofitable. In the system of capitalism we have, if their farms or businesses are not profitable, they simply cannot continue them.
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- Dec/1/23 12:41:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as a current member of the public accounts committee and a Public Accounts geek, I have read all three volumes, page after page, and none of what the colleague across the way has talked about has anything to do with Public Accounts volumes I, II or III.
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- Dec/1/23 12:43:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have read the Public Accounts and it does cover the price on pollution. It clearly shows that the government is taking more than it is actually distributing to taxpayers. However, that is in the Public Accounts; the free trade agreement is not. I ask you to bring the member to order.
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- Dec/1/23 1:28:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like my colleague to elaborate on how this situation will affect our farmers. Are we doing enough for our farmers from a public accounts perspective?
It is easy to look at other countries. Indeed, inputs are a major issue. This has changed in the past two years. My colleague reminded us that this report was produced two years ago. Are we doing enough for our farmers? I am thinking in particular of those who applied for CEBA loans. Could the government not have waited one more farming season?
I would like my colleague to elaborate on that.
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- Dec/1/23 1:49:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, certainly that is a concern. I think the bigger concern is that, right now, there is no incentive for any kind of co-operation. We wanted to ensure that the discretion lies entirely with the minister to be able to provide that and to be able to make an informed decision, with the help of the brilliant public service we have in this country, to make sure we are doing that in a way that helps bring people home, rather than of course to play into the hands of those trying to exploit the system.
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