QUESTION PERIOD — Agriculture and Agri-Food
Carbon Tax
October 26, 2023
Senator Gold, last week, your government deputy leader went to the Agriculture and Forestry Committee to help gut a bill that would exempt farmers from paying the carbon tax on propane and natural gas. This week, Senator Gold, you went to the same committee and voted for an amendment to further weaken that bill.
First, the Trudeau government told farmers they didn’t need a carbon tax exemption. Then they fixed only a small part, and when a private member’s bill to correct this passed the House of Commons with all party support, Trudeau-appointed senators try to delay and gut it. Now, you and your deputy leader, as the Trudeau government’s representatives in the Senate, have stepped into private member’s business at committee to ensure farmers get a raw deal.
Who gave you those marching orders? Was it the Prime Minister’s Office? It’s obvious cabinet doesn’t want the bill. Why is this Trudeau government so determined to hurt farmers with this punitive carbon tax?
Thank you for your question.
It is the position of the Government of Canada that it has both the interest and the right to take positions on legislation that is before the House or the Senate. This government does so. The vote in the other house reflects quite clearly some preoccupations that the government had with that private member’s bill. Although a handful of members of the governing party voted for it, a great majority did not.
The Government Representative Office in the Senate, just as the office of the opposition, has the right to send ex officio members to committees. We do so when we are advised that our counterpart attends. We were advised that would be the case, and we went there to listen to the debate and to express our views. In the first instance, my colleague abstained on an amendment in question. It passed nonetheless.
The record will show that I am correct. Senator Batters is correct that I voted in support of an amendment, albeit one that was defeated.
That’s just the kind of answer I would expect from a senator belonging to the government party. Your deputy leader voted to overturn the committee chair’s ruling that removing barns from the exemption was out of order. Plus, she voted to cut the bill’s sunset clause to render it practically useless. I know what the farmers she is supposed to represent in Alberta would think of that.
You are dodging the question, Senator Gold: What is this Trudeau government’s problem with the farmers who feed us?
The government supports grain farmers. They do important, noble work on all of our behalf.
The fact that the government has a position that is different in a bill that uses its right — our right as senators — to seek to improve bills is something that is totally appropriate, and the government makes no apologies for doing that.
