Exempting Farmers from the Liberal Carbon Tax
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Summary
Member of Parliament for the North Humberland, Peterborough South, and the Shadow Minister for National Revenue, Philip Lawrence, joins us to talk about Bill C-206, the Private Members Bill, and its potential impact on carbon taxes.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm
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your host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton for the Legs Brock with new
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content every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. I know it is the summer, you are the
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hardcore, you're sticking with us. And for that, we will continue to produce new content
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because we know the Liberal agenda never stops moving and we need your help to push back
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against it. We need you to like, comment, subscribe, share this program and together we can push
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back against that agenda. If you can't watch or listen to this program at this exact moment,
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you can download it later on. Listen to it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play,
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Spotify, you name it, it is out there. And I welcome to the show a first-time guest,
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Philip Lawrence, the Member of Parliament for North Humberland, Peterborough South, my neighbour
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to the South and the Shadow Minister for National Revenue. Hello, Philip Lawrence.
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Hey Jamie, it's great to be here, an absolute privilege and honour to be what I believe is
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not just the best Conservative, but the best podcast in Canada. Certainly the best podcast.
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That's what we're working towards every single Tuesday with new content to be Canada's number
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one Conservative podcast. And with words like that, why have we not had you on before? I don't
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have to talk to some people, have my people talk to other people. Okay, what we're talking about
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today, Mr. Lawrence, my neighbour to the South, Bill C-206, your private members bill. As we all
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know, private members bills rarely get passed through the process, rarely make it to the Senate,
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rarely make law. Now yours is still stuck in the Senate, but it's gone through the process in the
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House of Commons, which is a feat all to itself. And with private members bills, for those just paying
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attention, I know we talked about it a bit last week with Larry McGuire and his private members
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bill. After every election, there's basically a lottery, all the names, all 338 names, minus the
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speakers, so 337 get put into, and I guess the ministers get put into a, I guess a lottery,
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it's drawn and you get your place up to one to 300 and some odd after the ministers and speakers are
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removed. So it is quite the process. So if you get high up on the list, you're golden.
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And there are some MPs that have served for, for multiple years who have not had a chance,
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but Philip Lawrence, the one and only gets a chance right off the bat. Tell us about your
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private members bill. Yeah. So I'll start with a little bit of a preamble here, Jamie. So
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as you can recall back, I think you were elected in 2015, if I've got that right. When you're first
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elected, it's a bit of a whirlwind and you're trying to get all the constituency pieces, your office in
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Ottawa, your staff sorted, just a million things coming at you. And so I can remember in being in
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my Ottawa office and having my staffer walk through the, walk through my office door and literally say
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to me, Philip, you won the lottery. Well, what? All right. Well, I'm out of here. No, just kidding.
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Sorry. And that was the lottery for the private members bill. So at that point, we, we were trying
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to, like I said, there's a million things. It's like taking water out of a fire hose. We're trying
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to figure this out. And so, and you have, you can pretty much select anything within reason to take
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and put, write your private members bill about. And so we conducted a search and we, we, we talked to
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numerous experts, other MPs about what we should do with our private members bill and our riding,
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having a large proportion of rural and agricultural areas to it. We, we wanted that, that, that sort of
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came to the top of the top of the list of a number of things. And in talking to, to our farmers,
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our local constituents and advocacy groups, what came out over and over again was the impact the
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carbon tax Jamie was having on our farmers. I mean, the carbon taxes had, had a damaging impact
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really across our economy, but particularly in agriculture, the, the pain is acute because in
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other, in many other industries, when an input cost or the cost of production increases, that can be
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passed on to the consumer. That simply cannot happen in, in many of the areas of agriculture, because
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ultimately are lots of times agricultural production prices are not set by the free market, but are set
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and said by international boards and other things like that, where the price just simply cannot be
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pushed along to the consumer. And because of that, our farmers were hurting. And so my bill, bill C206
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was to reduce, or actually eliminate, I should say, completely exempt the carbon tax on natural gas and
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propane for our farmers, making them more competitive and, and hopefully reducing the
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burden on our farmers. So they can be increasingly competitive and also reduce the food costs for
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Canadians as well. Yeah. Farmers are one group that has been hit very hard. Of course, Larry McGuire's
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bill that we talked about last week, which leveled the playing field on the farms and some small
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businesses that want to sell their, their business, their operation to a family member, maybe a son or
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daughter wants to carry on, on the operation. They, if they would be put on an unlevel playing field
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prior to this bill passing, that would make it more advantageous to, and I'm telling this to a tax
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lawyer here, I'm telling this to a tax lawyer, maybe he can do this better than I can. But basically,
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you were punished for selling that operation to a family member, it was actually more advantageous to
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go to a international corporation or someone outside of that circle that would somehow, you know,
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if you're looking at a retirement package, uh, it would really disadvantage keeping the, the
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operation in your family. So that fixed that you're trying to fix the other side, which is
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in a wet season, like I believe 2019 was fairly wet. All these farmers had to, to dry, uh, dry their
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grains. Uh, and that really, really ate into their profit margin. Yeah. So when it was referred to
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colloquially, uh, by, uh, by our then minister of agriculture, uh, John Barlow is a harvest from hell.
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Um, it was extremely difficult. And so, uh, for those of you who aren't farmers, who aren't involved
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in, uh, grain, uh, production, uh, when the grain is taken off the field and in wet conditions is it's
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absolutely essential that it's machine dried, uh, failure to have put that in the dryer and get that
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grain dried will mean that that grain will simply rot, which means a whole year's worth of income,
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a whole year's worth of work will literally just rot away. And so farmers have to put it in grain
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dryers. Those grain dryers are powered primarily either by natural gas or propane. Um, and, and so
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farmers were paying carbon tax on that, Jamie, and it was costing them tens of thousands of dollars.
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I had farmers from all across our great country, send me their receipts. And then which was the
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irony, which was, I mean, just added insult to injury was the fact that they actually charged
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GST on top of that. So you actually paid tax on your tax. So farmers would show me their receipts
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where they paid 10, 15, $20,000 in carbon tax. Um, and then on top of that paid five, a thousand
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dollars on, uh, of GST or HST on top of that. So farmers were paying tens of thousands of dollars.
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And this was something that was absolutely essential. And then we studied it for a long
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while. Actually, we had six or seven meetings at the agriculture committee. Um, and, uh, the,
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the liberals, uh, attempted to get witnesses that said that there might be other ways to do this more
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environmentally sustainable. And they couldn't know witness gave testimony that there was a viable
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alternative. And so there wasn't, it wasn't like farmers could avoid the carbon tax in any way.
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This was a completely inelastic curve to use. Um, so all that happened was it wasn't the whole,
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the idea or the belief, uh, on the left with the carbon tax is that if they incentivize, if they
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make, uh, environmentally sensitive, environmentally more sustainable technologies, beneficial,
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less expensive, then people will move that way. There was no such alternative. All this was doing
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was a tax grab from, from our farmers who are amongst the hardest working people in this great country.
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It was completely, completely ridiculous. And so, uh, was very happy to introduce bill C 206.
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And as you said, Jamie, we were one of, uh, of only 3% of, uh, private members bills, make it outside
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of the, um, um, sorry, make it pass through the house of commons. And if I could just comment for a
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moment, I, I think it's shameful what's going on with Jerry or with, uh, Larry McGuire's bill, um, in the
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fact that the finance department is refusing to implement it that bill. I'm sorry. I'm going to go a little
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bit geeky here, uh, as a tax lawyer, uh, here that the, the legislation that meant to correct
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was a, it was a bill to, uh, uh, originally that legislation was put in place to, uh, to avoid,
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uh, non-compliance with the tax, to avoid people circumventing it. But the unintended consequences
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of that legislation is causing farm, uh, family farms to go out of business. Larry McGuire's bill
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was a great bill. It has to be, and it should be put in immediately. And the fact that the finance
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department is delaying that is just shameful. All right. You got a bit ahead of me here. I want to
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ask you about that, but before we, we jump to that, uh, it is a minority parliament. Obviously
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bills cannot proceed if there is not in our case as the opposition to at least two parties support
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of the major parties, uh, one, if you're the governing side. So your bill made it through the
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house of commons process through the committee stage here in the Senate, what, who voted against
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it? Which party voted against your bill? Yeah. So, so I'll, I'll just set the context here. So
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we got on our side, the block Quebec law, the new democratic party, um, not exactly climate change
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deniers, um, and the green party of Canada to support exemption from the carbon tax, because all of
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those parties saw this was a common sense solution to help our farmers. And they realized that the tax
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on propane and natural gas, the carbon tax on natural gas and propane were, were not, was there
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was no way for farmers, um, to avoid it. There was no more economic or environmentally sensitive tool.
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So the only party to vote against this was the liberal party with a notable exception of Francis
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Druin, the one liberal MP who broke ranks and actually voted for our legislation. And I thank
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Francis for that. Um, but there was no really grounds for it, but, uh, I'll, I'll pass the floor back to
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you as I tend to take up too much auction here. No, you're doing just fine. All right. Let's throw
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the tax lawyer hat on. Let's talk about Larry McGuire's bill. Since we did that interview with
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him, the finance department has come out with, uh, with a few notes, uh, basically, as you said,
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uh, basically almost saying, yeah, we're not going to, to implement this, but it is law. It passed the
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Senate. It got Royal assent. Uh, maybe just talk a bit about that and explain to it what the next
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steps are and why this is happening. Yeah. So it's part of a pattern, Jamie, a troubling pattern of
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this PMO. And I say PMO it's, it's not even the liberal party per se, but the PMO taking on greater
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and greater powers that they're not entitled to. So as you know, Jamie, of course, they ignore the
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call from parliament, um, to disclose certain documents to the parliamentary law clerk. We see
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once again, that they're ignoring the will of parliament by not implementing Larry McGuire's
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bill. Uh, and it's extremely disappointing that they won't put this, the, the, it was the will of the,
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it was the will of the house of commons, the will of Senate that Larry McGuire's bill be implemented
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and their failure to implement it is simply shameful. And this is exactly what, uh, what
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Jody Wilson-Raybould, um, uh, of course she resigned last week, uh, or said she wouldn't
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run again, I should say last week. And that's what she was commenting too. I thought in a very
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well drafted letter that the, the continualized centralization and ignore it and ignoring the
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power of parliament is just so troubling and so difficult, uh, because they're not just
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ignoring Jamie, Jamie, you and I, which maybe is understandable to some people.
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Uh, but they're ignoring the will of Northumberland, Peterborough, South end of, of your riding and
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of our people across Canada, because we're their voice in parliament.
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It's a good tee up to the show for next week. Next week, we're going to talk to Michael Chong
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about those documents, about why the government is keeping the documents related to the firing of two,
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uh, scientists that were escorted out by the RCMP from the high security lab in, in Winnipeg and
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continuing, continuing to lay, I guess the liberals are hoping an election call happens so they can
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put that behind them and don't have to actually release those documents and tell Canadians why
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that happened and what's actually going on. But how, how, how is this possible? How can the,
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the, the, the executive branch continue to just basically push aside the legislative branch?
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This, this, this is very concerning. It's, it's extremely concerning and not just for a particular
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bill. And of course, as I've talked about, Larry McGuire's bill is very important for our farmers,
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particularly our family farms. And, uh, of course we want to have the documentation with respect to
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the, uh, the Winnipeg lab scientists, but it's, it even has bigger repercussions than that because it
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affects our entire democracy. And I said, Jody Wilson-Raybould wrote about it in her,
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in her resignation letter. We, parliament is critical. It's a core of our democracy. When
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we start ignoring the will of parliament, they said, we are ignoring the will of the people,
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which is an incredibly dangerous precedent. And I must say, uh, just, uh, it is, we need,
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we need to make sure that, uh, that we have an Aaron O'Toole government going forward, because
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that's the only way we really get, um, to the root of this corruption is that we, we, uh, we elect
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Aaron O'Toole as an ex prime minister of Canada. All right. Well, we only have a few more minutes
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left, but, uh, I just want to continue on about, uh, those in the agriculture sector. The,
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these individuals, these family operations in many cases are the stewards of the land. They
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are using techniques that help reduce their, their footprint. They are the ones looking after,
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uh, the land producing food that we can eat, that we can export, that we can help feed the world.
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So we want to make sure that they are competitive, that they are able to, to make a living at the
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end of the day and make it actually worthwhile to transfer that operation to the younger generation
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so that they can continue the, the proud tradition of, of feeding Canadians and feeding the world.
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Absolutely. Well said, uh, instead I was talking to, I have a little bit of land out, uh, out in
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Orono where I live and, uh, we leased that out to a local farmer. And so, uh, he came over and we
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were talking about the field and he was talking about his GPS. His GPS is literally down to a
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half an inch. That's how precise he is. So that makes sure that he doesn't use any more fertilizer,
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any more herbicide or fungicide or insecticide that's necessary to limit his footprint. But what
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farmers need to do is they need to be able to invest. And if the government takes all of their
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capital, they have the inability. And so the idea that by putting in the carbon tax, we would,
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we make farmers more environmentally is exactly the opposite. We're taking money away from them
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that they can't invest in new GPS technology, that they can't invest in new, more environmentally
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sustainable technology. We need to make sure that farmers are profitable, that they have capital
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to re to reinvest in their operations because it's thin, thin margins. And if we're taking all
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of their capital, they simply can't reinvest in environmental technologies.
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Sounds like what most small businesses across Canada are talking about right now, their lack of
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ability to be competitive in not only domestic markets, but international markets. And it's hard
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to invest in those things. It's hard to give raises to their employees when, when, when they're having
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trouble coming up with the next great product or service that people want to buy and continuing to
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innovate. So yes, I think that's a general statement across the, the small business,
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all the small business atmosphere as it stands right now in this country. So Philip, I always give
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the guests the last word. So maybe I'll turn it over to you and you can take it away just to give
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your final thoughts and comments on, on the bill or whatever's on your mind. Let's, let's hear what's
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on the mind. Well, maybe we don't want to hear what's on the mind of Philip Lawrence.
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Thanks very much, Jamie. And I'll start out by saying thank you very much, Jamie, for all the
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support you've given to me. I'll say that publicly as a new MP, you've been a great mentor and
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appreciate all the support. And then that, and then I guess I'd finish up by saying thank you to
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the farmers and all of my constituents for being incredibly supportive through the very difficult
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pandemic. We'll continue to advocate for you. I want to make sure that rural Ontario gets a fair
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shake and we'll work hard every day for the people of Northumberland, Peterborough South. Thanks very
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much. He is very smooth. Ladies and gentlemen, Philip Lawrence, the member of parliament for
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Northumberland, Peterborough South. Although when he was in the chair, very temporarily,
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he got my writing name wrong. I will make sure I get his name and his writing right. He's also
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the shadow minister for revenue. We do appreciate his time, his energy, his enthusiasm, and his
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dedication to helping ensure that our agriculture community remains strong and vibrant for this
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generation and the next. Again, new content every single Tuesday, 1 30 PM Eastern time. We are not
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And remember, low taxes, less government, for freedom. That is the Woodworks.