Hon. Paul J. Massicotte: Welcome, minister. Canada’s boreal forests represent a quarter of the world’s forests. For many years, we’ve been a leader in sustainable forest management. These forests store a significant amount of carbon in the soils, and that carbon is released into the atmosphere during logging. It is estimated that 122 megatonnes of CO₂ are released every year through logging. Are these emissions accounted for by the government? If so, how does your government envisage reducing these emissions to meet our net-zero targets?

Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, P.C., M.P., Minister of Natural Resources: I wouldn’t agree with your assertion. It’s extremely important that these projects go ahead. That’s particularly true in the oil sands, where CCUS — carbon capture, utilization and storage — is one of the major opportunities for reducing emissions.

We must be sensitive to two things: the overall economics of the projects and what our friends in the United States are doing under the Inflation Reduction Act.

We brought forward what we thought was an appropriate incentive to bring forward the capital that’s required to build these kinds of projects. We expect the private sector also to be putting its capital at play; it is part of the solution here, too. There are other ways in which we can create value — for example, contracts for differences, which is something we are embedding in the new Canada growth fund which is of value and must be calculated into the overall economics.

We are waiting for the Government of Alberta to come forward with what it is going to do under its royalty regime as part of this. They have been working on that for some significant time, but that’s part of this on a go-forward basis. We have done lots of analysis with respect to how we compare vis-à-vis the United States, and Canada is actually quite reasonable in terms of where it sits.

We certainly want these to go ahead. I talk to the Pathways Alliance CEOs all the time; I talk to the Province of Alberta all the time. My view is that these are going to proceed. The Government of Canada is committed to doing what we need to do, but we obviously expect the sector to do their part as well.

Hon. Denise Batters: Minister, one of Canada’s most abundant natural resources are the agricultural products produced by our farmers, but the Trudeau government’s tripling carbon tax threatens their livelihoods. While your government claims that farm fuels are exempt from carbon tax, natural gas and propane are not. Farmers who rely on those fuels to dry their grain and heat their barns see bills in the tens of thousands of dollars. The average $860 carbon tax rebate you promise provides pennies on the dollar.

Canadian farmers are already careful environmental stewards, but they pay the Trudeau carbon tax on fuel, fertilizer and transporting grain and cattle to market, again and again. That drives up the price of food, which, again, affects the farmers as consumers. It also affects the grocery bills of every Canadian, rural and urban.

When will your government axe the carbon tax on all farm fuels and give our farmers and all Canadian consumers a much‑needed break?