Honourable senators, this item stands adjourned in the name of the Honourable Senator Plett and, after my intervention today, I ask for leave that it remain adjourned in his name.

Honourable senators, I rise to speak today because a Speech from the Throne should be a vision for an entire country, for all its citizens, in all regions. I have a few thoughts about my part of the country.

Farming is a tough business. Mother nature is a cruel task master. Rail strikes and port closure make the razor-thin margins even thinner. Carbon taxes and emission caps are punitive and kill jobs. All this at a time when the world needs what we have more than ever.

Since the days of World War II, when Canada not only served alongside but fed our allies in Britain and Europe, farming and agriculture have truly been work that gives purpose to our plenty. Today, there are still foreign wars, and the world still needs what we produce.

Why does it seem that governments, and even this chamber, seem determined to make a tough business tougher? Even more troubling is that the endless rules and regulations seem to conspire to price the products they grow and the livestock they raise — the things that Canada creates to feed ourselves and the world — out of the market and our farmers out of business. It seems deliberate, sometimes even mean-spirited, targeting farmers with implausible restrictions on the use of fertilizer or rules that put undue burden for the ills of climate change on those who do more to save our air, soil and open spaces than anyone one else.

The climate activists, including those around the cabinet table, too often ignore reality and seem insensitive to geography, weather, the size of the farm, new technology, trade wars, and to the current practices that have put our agricultural sector on the leading edge of sustainable practices globally.

Why are they doing this? Is it, as one cabinet minister noted, because the West doesn’t vote Liberal? Are there simple urban biases? As for the Senate, we are constitutionally designated to be the voice of the regions, but we are increasingly seen to be no friend of the farmer — guilty of wilful ignorance. We embrace all manner of bills that seem hell-bent on everything from punishing the farmer who wants to bequeath land to the next generation, to replacing our food with lab-made versions of what we already have. It feels as if I am always explaining that food doesn’t come from the store.

Several years back, in this place, we almost passed a bill that would have declared bread unhealthy — whole wheat or seven grain? The bill raised issues of legal liability and implications for trade and commerce, and if we had then tried to export a product that we had declared unhealthy, think of the consequences. We ship some 22 megatonnes of wheat to over 65 countries every year. We are one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat. It would have been devastating for grain farmers.

In 2023, the agri-food system employed 2.5 million people, accounting for one in nine jobs and generating $150 billion. That’s 7% of our gross domestic product, or GDP. Our primary agricultural producers alone — just one part of the food chain — are responsible for a quarter of a million jobs, contributing 1.4% to the GDP. There are about 190,000 farms in Canada on more than 60 million hectares — although I still think in acres and sections — and what this land produces pays for everything from highways to health care to homes.

We have amazing innovators and entrepreneurs such as Murad Al-Katib, a good Saskatchewan boy who runs the global multi-billion-dollar business AGT Food and Ingredients Inc., exporting food products to the world, including lentils, to feed the growing and often undernourished populations throughout Southeast Asia. This is what agriculture does.

Last year, the Senate had the opportunity to pass Bill C-234 and give farmers some desperately needed relief from the carbon tax on gas and propane for heating outbuildings and barns and for the hugely expensive process of grain drying. Some of the arguments betrayed the ignorance of what modern farming is, and, in the end, we gutted the bill and sent it to the other place to die. Now there is a new round of punitive energy use rules — detailed just yesterday — that will, again, punish farmers and no doubt end up in costly court battles.

Another private member’s bill — Bill C-293 — before our chamber right now takes aim at industrial animal agriculture, including auction markets, under the guise of pandemic preparedness, and it gives officials sweeping new powers to shut down agricultural facilities. Saskatchewan farmer Breeanna Kelln says that Bill C-293 targets the animal agricultural industry by unfairly linking it to pandemics and diseases — connections that have not yet been supported by science but that are making her operation even more precarious.

Then there is Bill C-275, which would amend the Health of Animals Act to impose fines on trespassers. It is very helpful for farmers who face the costly consequences of protesters who may think they are saving animals but who are actually contaminating and damaging farms and even endangering the animals. Once again, the Senate amended the bill, casting the legal net so wide that it could now capture farm families and employees. The problem is that activists are thrilled, as it makes the bill almost impossible to enforce.

The Bloc Québécois bill — Bill C-282 — is aimed at protecting Quebec’s dairy quota and supply management system, but this too could jeopardize future free trade negotiations for all of Canada, including deals like the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA. It is a bill which, once again, divides the agricultural community and exacerbates the already powerful regional tensions in this country.

There is Bill C-280. We’ve been studying this at the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Commerce and the Economy. It is a bill to offer some financial protection for producers of fresh products with a short shelf life. Once again, Senate amendments will undermine the true intent, giving higher priority to others up the supply chain rather than to those whose products are perishable. It will also potentially limit our access to U.S. markets.

Bill S-243 takes direct aim at the energy and agricultural sectors by calling for more restrictive financing for farms and agricultural operations on environmental grounds. Farms actually run on credit. Without it, farms can’t operate; no business can.

There have been many tax rules aimed at the business of farming as well. Government threatened the right of farm families to split income for tax purposes when it is clear that these are family operations. It creates tax chaos and more accounting expenses, and now the retroactive capital gains changes — not yet supported by legislation — are making it difficult for small- and medium-sized businesses to plan.

You might have seen it, but Logan Docherty, a young Prince Edward Island farmer, broke down in tears before a House committee last week, where he said that handing down the farm to his generation is now probably out of reach.

You can see why the agricultural sector is concerned about whether its government understands how it works and its important contribution when so many obstacles are put in the way. When flawed legislation is passed, then the battles move from Parliament to the courts, and we continue to deal today with legally challenged bills like Bill C-48, Bill C-69 and now Bill C-59 aimed at greenwashing, but which actually silences those in industries such as energy and agriculture who dare not try to explain their progress on the climate front for fear of the legal challenges. In fact, some energy companies have even shut down their websites in fear of the fines for simply stating the facts.

Agriculture, ag tech and agri-food are all a successful and growing sector, but the cost of doing business is skyrocketing. Inputs — everything from multi-million-dollar combines to insurance bills to the cost of seed and feed — are spiralling and taking a heavy toll.

Outstanding farm debt in Canada has more than doubled in the last 20 years. In 2022, it totalled $140 billion with profit margins as low as five cents on the dollar. These days, it is less.

Whenever a government wants to send a message to a foreign competitor — for example, making a show of saying “no” to Chinese electric vehicles, or EVs — the price ends up being paid by our canola farmers or our beef or pork producers, because they are the ones retaliated against. No cabinet minister pays a price.

Farmers have long survived on faith. In my part of the world, we call it “next year country,” hoping that next year might be better with no late hailstorms or rain or snow in the spring, or no new laws that can change the rules of the game. To survive and thrive, hope must always trump fear because the elements will always conspire. Mother Nature, war, trade deals and, of course, politics here at home will always be part of the risk.

There are two optimistic notes and appreciation from the Grain Growers of Canada for the good work of two members of Parliament, the Senate Banking Committee and this chamber, especially Senator Deacon and Senator Housakos, for their work to see the passage of Bill C-244 and Bill C-294 — the so-called right to repair bills — which will save our ag producers time and money so that they can fix their equipment in a timely manner while offering all the necessary protection for crucial diagnostic software development and intellectual property, or IP.

Let’s hope it will be an incentive for the provinces to follow suit.

We are the chamber of sober second thought. We know the other place is, by design, captured by electoral politics and partisan interest. That’s their role. It means our responsibility, however, is vital to those we represent to always consider the unintended consequences of the bills we receive and to ensure we do no harm as we consider those bills. That is our paramount obligation.

Thank you, colleagues, for listening.