Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Senator Moncion’s amendment on Bill C-234.

The amendment would take away the government’s ability to extend the carbon tax farm exemptions in the bill beyond the sunset period by Governor-in-Council and by motions in the House of Commons and the Senate.

I say this is Senator Moncion’s amendment, but is it? When I asked Senator Moncion after her speech if this was the same amendment that Senator Woo had proposed at the Agriculture Committee, she replied, “I believe that it is similar.” But here is the text of the amendment. Senator Woo moved:

That Bill C-234 be amended, in clause 2,

(a) on page 2, by replacing lines 24 to 37 with the following:

“of the day on which this Act comes into force.”;

(b) on page 3, by deleting lines 1 to 9.

And Senator Moncion’s amendment? It’s not similar; these amendments are exactly the same, word for word.

So where did this amendment come from? Apparently, its sponsor in this chamber did not know her own amendment well enough to know that it was identical. Furthermore, Senator Moncion scarcely explained this amendment, offering only three sentences about it in her chamber speech that night.

However, Senator Woo explained his reasoning for bringing this amendment to committee by saying:

. . . we should not, as the chamber of sober second thought, allow for an extension of these exemptions to be able to go through with such ease.

And that is really the point here, isn’t it, honourable senators? The government doesn’t want farmers to get any relief on carbon tax, and certainly not with ease. Amendments like this are part of their strategy to delay, block, gut and ultimately kill any measures that would help farmers.

Senator Woo’s amendment was defeated at committee, but now Senator Moncion has brought it back to attempt to stonewall the bill again.

We’ve heard that “cabinet doesn’t want this bill.” No surprise for a Laurentian elite Trudeau government that is completely out of touch with Canada’s farmers. This is the government that recently built an $8 million so-called barn at Rideau Hall that is heated, has two stories, is zero carbon and holds a parking garage. That doesn’t sound like a barn to me; it sounds more like the stuff you shovel out of it.

Honourable senators, one of the Senate’s primary purposes is to bring the voices of Canada’s regions into the legislative process, so that is what I’m doing here today. I grew up in Regina. As with most kids who grow up in Saskatchewan, I have always understood the importance of agriculture. My dad sold farm equipment for decades. When I was a little girl, I would go to my dad’s shop and take a copy of all the glossy farm machinery brochures of shiny tractors, combines and, yes, even grain dryers. I’d lay them all around my bedroom and then call in my little sisters to come shopping because the farm equipment store was open for business.

Honourable senators, most of you are from large, urban centres. You probably don’t hear from farmers very often at all, but when you represent a largely rural province, as I do, I hear from farmers every weekend at home. Actually, this week, Regina’s hosting the annual Canadian Western Agribition, where this bill is a hot topic. Farmers are appalled at how some in the Senate are trying to obstruct and spike this bill, one that provides common sense relief for agricultural producers from an unfair carbon tax — a tax that, in some cases, poses an existential threat to their very livelihoods.

Farming has never been an easy way to make a living. Farmers are subject to all kinds of forces beyond their control: the unpredictability of weather, international markets and trade agreements, insects, weeds and diseases and, of course, an often unsympathetic government in Ottawa.

Case in point, the Trudeau government clings desperately to its carbon tax policy to incentivize Canadians to make choices that are better for the environment, but farmers need no lecture from the Trudeau government on how to be good stewards of the land. Farmers take excellent care of the land because it is in their own economic self-interest to do so.

Agriculture is a carbon sink. Practices such as zero-till seed drilling and crop rotation benefit the environment, and as technology advances, farms will continue to evolve with it. However, there are unique realities specific to farming that the Trudeau government wants to ignore. Until the technology advances, farmers need to rely on fuels like propane and natural gas for certain farm operations, like drying grain or heating and cooling barns and greenhouses. Real alternatives are not yet available, but these operations are absolutely vital to the success of agricultural enterprises. And let’s not forget: no farms, no food. If Canadian farms fail, our nation’s food security fails, too. That will have a detrimental effect on every single Canadian.

Not surprisingly, the Trudeau government’s proposed solutions involve huge costs. I’ve checked into it very recently, and a new farm-sized grain dryer sells for $300,000 for the dryer alone, plus another $100,000 to $150,000 for the requisite accessories.

Given that massive capital outlay, the energy savings from such a new unit would only be about 30%, as even Senator Dalphond recently admitted. Any savings would not even scratch the surface of the nearly $0.5 million you’d drop to purchase that grain dryer. And then there is the cost of carbon tax on drying the grain. I’ve seen the SaskEnergy bills from farmer Kenton Possberg of Humboldt, Saskatchewan. His carbon tax bill and the GST on top of that carbon tax for one month when he runs his grain dryer is $6,400. Another is about $4,000. Yet, in the winter month when he doesn’t run the dryer, the carbon tax in that month costs him only $135. The $5,000-per-month difference is shocking.

Farmers in Saskatchewan especially feel the pain of the carbon tax because of our province’s landlocked location. Ian Boxall, President of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, said:

Saskatchewan farms are going to pay over $40 million in carbon tax just to get their products to port. This is money that comes right out of rural Saskatchewan.

Agricultural producers across the country share similar concerns. Hessel Kielstra, a poultry producer in Alberta, explained the impact of the carbon tax on his operation this way:

We can’t afford the crippling carbon tax. If it is allowed to continue to go to $170, we will need to shut down, which would be very painful to us as a family . . .

The cost to us is as follows:

$120,000 in 2022

$180,000 in 2023

$480,000 annually when the carbon tax reaches $170.

As you can see, the carbon tax is prohibitive for us.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has assessed Bill C-234 and determined that the carbon tax exemptions in this legislation would save farmers $1 billion by 2030. This would be significant for many agricultural producers. In many cases, it could save their livelihoods.

Gunter Jochum, a grain farmer from Manitoba and the President of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, said:

At the current rate, the tax is costing my farm about $40,000. However, the government wants to increase the tax, which would cost my farm a whopping $136,000 per year by 2030. This will jeopardize the viability and sustainability of my farm.

Recently, Prime Minister Trudeau provided a carve-out to the carbon tax, a reversal of his own government’s signature policy, but the tax exemption was limited to those Canadians who heat their home with oil, meaning that the relief is mostly targeted at Atlantic Canada. This is, of course, for crass political reasons, an attempt to shore up sagging Liberal fortunes in the region. Trudeau’s own Rural Economic Development Minister Gudie Hutchings admitted as much directly. She said the carve-out came as a result of pressure from Atlantic Canadian Liberal MPs and that if Western provinces wanted a similar carbon tax exemption, “. . . perhaps they need to elect more Liberals on the Prairies . . . .”

This just goes to show how little the Trudeau Liberals understand the West at all. It also doesn’t say much for former Trudeau minister Ralph Goodale, who was Saskatchewan’s only representative at the cabinet table when the carbon tax scheme was created and implemented. He also failed to stand up for Western farmers for years when they called for this exemption to the carbon tax.

With their partial reversal on carbon tax, the Trudeau government has admitted carbon tax costs are excessive and that the government should not charge it where costs are outside of consumers’ control and no alternative fuel sources are available, which is exactly the situation for many farmers.

Given the carve-out the Liberals have already allowed for Eastern Canada, it is blatantly unfair to refuse Western farmers carbon tax relief on natural gas and propane as well.

Saskatchewan has already been paying the carbon tax for four and a half years. In that time, the Trudeau government has taken several positions on carbon tax relief for farmers. First, the Trudeau government said farmers didn’t need a break from paying carbon taxes because, according to them, farms and agricultural operations would be “completely exempt from carbon pricing” for normal farming operations.

Of course, the Trudeau government broke that promise by charging carbon tax on grain drying. It is stunning that it took this government years to realize that grain drying is a normal farming operation. Then they switched their tune to imply that the poultry carbon tax rebate would cover what they viewed as “tiny” expenditures for grain drying. Of course, that simply wasn’t true. Many farmers pay carbon tax bills in the tens of thousands of dollars, and the rebates they receive are only pennies on the dollar. The rebate covers only 7% to 10% of what agriculture producers pay in carbon tax. That means the other 90% to 93% of the cost is borne directly by farmers and, ultimately, the consumer.

Food does not fall from the sky and magically appear on the shelves at Whole Foods. The carbon tax is paid by the farmer who grows the food and the truckers who ship the food, so it’s paid by the consumer who buys the food. The cost of fuel drives up the cost of everything, and prices rise in every sector with every contributor along the chain, as everyone charges more to cover their increased costs of production. Canadian consumers end up stuck with the bill, while Canadian farmers remain at a global disadvantage.

The Trudeau government likes to tout the recent doubling of the rural supplement as additional relief for farmers, but I can tell you doubling the supplement would yield someone living in rural Saskatchewan only $11 a month. How long does it take to spend $11? It takes only 11 seconds to put $11 of gas in your car. I timed it. And how far can you travel on $11 of gas? Roughly only 70 to 80 kilometres. That’s less than the distance it takes many rural Canadians to go one way to a medical appointment, get groceries, take their kids to extracurricular activities and certainly less than the distance many farmers travel to buy parts for their farm equipment.

Many farmers commute longer than that to a secondary job because farming often can’t cover all their family’s costs.

The Trudeau government is pitting one region of the country against another, and now they are pulling out all the stops to ensure farmers won’t get any relief from their crushing carbon tax scheme — which brings me to today’s debate.

Farmers got a glimmer of hope with this MP’s bill when Bill C-234 passed in the House of Commons with support from MPs in all parties, even including three MPs from the Liberals. But now that this bill has come to the independent Senate, the Trudeau government, including their own Senate leader and deputy leader, are taking extreme measures to delay, weaken and try to kill it. That explains a flurry of panicked phone calls from Ministers Guilbeault and Wilkinson to some senators.

Minister Guilbeault admitted in a recent interview that he spoke to “only a handful of remaining Liberal senators.” Even the minister recognizes that there isn’t complete independence in the Senate.

I know of at least one independent senator who was told carbon tax costs farmers only $900 a year. That is not the case. The Trudeau government is intentionally misleading senators.

Honourable senators, don’t let yourselves be used by a government that is acting solely in its own partisan self-interest and not in the best interests of Canadians.

Senator Moncion’s amendment is another way for this government to hurt Canadian farmers, to penalize them for not voting Liberal. Amending the bill at this stage could essentially kill the bill. Independent Senator Brent Cotter said as much at the Senate Agriculture Committee when he said:

. . . every amendment that we introduce into this bill puts in jeopardy the likelihood that the exemption in any form doesn’t see the light of day, and that seems to me to be sad and ironic since, based on our conversation last Thursday, we supported an aspect of the exemption itself at this committee, particularly with respect to grain drying.

So for me, a relatively insignificant provision and a relatively insignificant amendment layered onto this are not justified, and I will vote against this amendment. . . .

If Bill C-234 is amended and returns to the House of Commons, it is likely that the government would not call it forward again, leaving it to die on the Order Paper with the next election. Unfortunately, farmers don’t have the luxury of waiting for this government to be defeated. They need carbon tax relief now.

Bill C-234 is a common-sense plan to deliver that much‑needed relief to farmers. It passed the House of Commons many months ago. Thousands of Canadians have contacted our offices, urging us to pass this bill unamended. Five premiers have written to you on behalf of their provinces, urging the same.

Senators, if the Senate does not pass Bill C-234, you will show yourselves to be woefully out of touch with Canadians.

I ask you to do the right thing on behalf of Canadians. Vote against this amendment and stop the stonewalling on delivering carbon tax relief for the farmers who feed our nation and feed our world. Thank you.