Western Standard - November 21, 2023


Farmers standing up against the carbon tax and urging the Senate to pass Bill C 234

Mentioned
Bill C-63 Justin Trudeau Colin Chapdelaine Hessel Kielstra Roger Cousner Jan Vanderord Albert Kramer Barlow
‘Get Out Of The Road’ Two killed in terrorist explosion at Buffalo border crossing

Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

154.98

Word count

1,507

Sentence count

88

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Learn English with Honourable MP Jan Vanderput. Bill C-234 is a critical piece of legislation that will provide farmers across Canada some much needed financial relief when it comes to the carbon tax introduced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. But now, Liberal-appointed Senators are trying to kill the bill and bury the news in the fall economic statement.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Certainly, I appreciate the number of farmers who are standing behind me with me today and have come to Ottawa from all across Canada to voice their concerns with the games that are being played in the Senate when it comes to a very important piece of legislation, a common sense conservative bill, C234, which will provide farmers across Canada some much needed financial relief when it comes to the carbon tax.
00:00:30.000 Our Canadian farmers are world leaders in sustainable and efficient food production, but after eight years of Justin Trudeau and his costly carbon tax, their livelihoods and their family farms are in jeopardy.
00:00:41.640 This is a reality in rural communities across Canada where farmers do not have any other alternatives to heat and cool their barns and dry their grain.
00:00:51.840 They do everything they can to innovate, adapt new technology and ensure the environmental sustainability of their operations.
00:01:00.000 That is why this common sense conservative bill, C234, was introduced because a tax on farmer is an increase on the cost of food for every single Canadian.
00:01:12.060 As I said, this bill will provide much needed financial relief for our farmers who want to make food more affordable for Canadians in the face of Justin Trudeau's inflationary taxes and deficits.
00:01:22.420 Now, there is already an exemption on gas and diesel for farmers, but Bill C234 would expand the exemption to natural gas and propane, which are actually cleaner burning fuels, and this will address what I believe is an oversight in the initial price on pollution and carbon tax regulations introduced by this Liberal government.
00:01:40.420 But by giving an exemption on home heating oil for Atlantic Canada, Justin Trudeau has admitted that his carbon tax is unaffordable for Canadians.
00:01:47.420 In fact, the Liberal Minister for Rural Economic Development, who should be defending rural Canadians and farm families across Canada, said if farmers wanted relief, they should vote Liberal.
00:02:00.420 Well, then why aren't farmers in Liberal-held ridings getting any relief from 234?
00:02:07.420 This Prime Minister has admitted that he has a political agenda and not an environmental plan.
00:02:12.420 This critical bill earned all party support in the House of Commons.
00:02:17.420 But now, Liberal-appointed Senators and the Liberal government are playing games with the Senate after the activist Environment Minister promised no more carve-outs for his prized carbon tax scheme.
00:02:29.420 The Liberals in the Senate are trying to kill Bill C234 today and bury the news in the fall economic statement.
00:02:37.420 In fact, they are swearing in four new Senators today to ensure they have the votes they need to kill this bill.
00:02:44.420 These Senators, including Roger Cousiner, who is a former Liberal Member of Parliament, so not exactly an independent Senate, have not participated in any debates or any discussions on this bill.
00:02:57.420 So it would be extremely disingenuous if those five new Senators were to vote on this bill today.
00:03:04.420 If they are going to vote against our farmers and vote to increase costs on food for Canadians, then they should face the Canadian public.
00:03:13.420 They should not be hiding from their decision.
00:03:16.420 Conservatives will not let the Liberals kill this bill today and hide from their responsibility.
00:03:22.420 Bill C234 will save farmers close to a billion dollars by 2030.
00:03:29.420 Again, this is much-needed financial relief for farmers who are already drowning in carbon taxes, input costs and higher interest rates.
00:03:37.420 But the sudden adjournment of the debate on third reading on 234 in the Senate two weeks ago was a clear and malicious attempt by the Liberal-appointed Senators to obstruct this critical piece of legislation.
00:03:49.420 Liberal Ministers, in fact, were frantically calling Senators strong-arming them to kill this bill.
00:03:56.420 All Canadians rely on our farmers to be economically viable in a time when Canadians are struggling to put food on the table,
00:04:03.420 with two million Canadians relying on food banks in the month of March alone.
00:04:07.420 That is unacceptable.
00:04:09.420 Food should not be a luxury.
00:04:11.420 And Liberal-appointed Senators need to stop playing games with the livelihoods of Canadian farmers and playing hunger games with Canadian families.
00:04:19.420 We are seeing farmers rally across the country this week.
00:04:23.420 Rallies in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Atlantic Canada.
00:04:28.420 Farmers who have had enough of the Liberal games and need to see Bill 234 passed to make farming and food more affordable.
00:04:36.420 In fact, farmers from my own riding of foothills in Alberta have come all the way to Ottawa, have their voices heard.
00:04:42.420 From Alberta to Atlantic Canada, our farmers are asking Senators to do the right thing
00:04:48.420 and passed Bill C-234 in its original form.
00:04:52.420 So farmers have a more affordable livelihood and Canadians have more affordable food to put on their tables.
00:04:59.420 Now I'm going to hand over the podium to some of the farmers who have some words to say and describe their personal experiences
00:05:06.420 with the harsh realities that the carbon tax and Justin Trudeau's NDP Liberal government policies are having on their operations.
00:05:13.420 So, Jan, you're going to be first.
00:05:19.420 Thank you very much. My name is Jan Vanderord. I'm a greenhouse cucumber farmer, third generation greenhouse cucumber farmer in Hamilton, Ontario.
00:05:26.420 And I'm here to tell you that this is really important that the Senate passes Bill C-234.
00:05:32.420 It makes a difference not only to farmers, but it makes a difference to consumers.
00:05:36.420 And I know I'm echoing the words that Mr. Barlow just spoke, but people think that they're just going to lay this on the farmers.
00:05:43.420 Oh, just one more expense for the farmers.
00:05:45.420 But the reality is the consumers of Canada and our competitors will be paying the price.
00:05:50.420 Thanks, Jan. My name is Colin Chapdelaine. I'm with Star Produce. We're a grower marketer of greenhouse products in Alberta and British Columbia.
00:06:03.420 The issue we have with this is the competitiveness.
00:06:08.420 Getting our inputs taxed higher when we export 80% of our product to the U.S. puts us at a competitive disadvantage.
00:06:20.420 And we're looking to have this passed unamended so we can be on the same playing field as our partners in the U.S.
00:06:28.420 Thank you.
00:06:32.420 Hello. My name is Albert Kramer. I'm a greenhouse grower out of Alberta and also on the board of the FTG Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada.
00:06:41.420 And this bill is very important for our area also because we supply all our local markets in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
00:06:49.420 And it just gives us an uncompetitive edge against stuff that's coming in from different parts of the world.
00:06:55.420 So I would very much encourage that this bill be passed just for food security. Thank you.
00:07:09.420 Hi. My name is Hessel Kielstra. I'm from Alberta and we're involved in broiler poultry.
00:07:17.420 And this bill is really important to us that it passes unamended because by the time it's 2030 or 2030, it's going to cost us $480,000 a year.
00:07:31.420 And that's unaffordable. It has to be passed on to consumers. But as we all know, you can't pass all things on.
00:07:37.420 So a lot of farmers will fail because you won't be able to do it economically.
00:07:43.420 So it's very important for us that this bill pass.
00:07:47.420 And the peculiar thing for us is there's always unintended consequences.
00:07:51.420 So even if you go by the spirit of trying to reduce carbon, well, if we start reducing our usage of natural gas,
00:08:02.420 we will probably be charged with animal cruelty because our baby chicks will die. 0.98
00:08:07.420 So those are the type of unintended consequences that people don't always realize.
00:08:12.420 So we really hope that the bill passes later today.
00:08:23.420 Well, thank you very much for sharing those stories.
00:08:26.420 And those are just a few of what we heard.
00:08:28.420 I had a dairy farmer from B.C. call me a couple of weeks ago in tears that she's going to lose her farm to bankruptcy by Christmas 0.98
00:08:35.420 as her input costs and interest rates have quadrupled and her carbon tax has more than doubled over the last year.
00:08:42.420 And it's just no longer financially viable for her to hang on to the family dairy farm. 1.00
00:08:46.420 And she's one of many of those stories that we have heard.
00:08:50.420 And I know the Liberal Environment Minister is saying, well, 97 percent of carbon tax is already covered.
00:08:56.420 I don't know where the Environment Minister is getting this number because it is complete falsehood
00:09:01.420 that 97 percent of the carbon taxes farmers are paying are covered.
00:09:05.420 And this is simply not true.
00:09:07.420 And you've heard these stories where farmers are paying tens of thousands,
00:09:11.420 in many cases hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in carbon taxes
00:09:14.420 and not getting anything back that's nearly revenue neutral.
00:09:18.420 These are the facts.
00:09:19.420 These are what farmers are facing across Canada.
00:09:22.420 And that's why we are so adamant that it's so important to have Bill C-234
00:09:27.420 passed through the Senate as quickly as possible, unamended,
00:09:30.420 to ensure that our farmers have the financial relief they need
00:09:33.420 to remain economically viable.
00:09:35.420 And Canadians have affordable, nutritious, healthy, Canadian-produced, grown food in the grocery stores.