Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre launched a “common sense” campaign to get Bill C 234 passed, which removes the carbon tax off of farmers to heat their barns and dry grains.“One in five skipping meals because they cannot afford the cost of food that is why common sense conservatives introduced Bill C 234,” said Poilievre.“This is a bill that takes taxes off farmers. Right now, Trudeau’s tax applies to heating barns and drying grains. That means that our farmers are charged more for energy.”.Poilievre used the example of a mushroom farm in his riding.“I have a mushroom farm in my writing that spends tens of thousands of dollars on carbon taxes alone,” said Poilievre.“That has to go on the price of mushrooms that you buy at the grocery store. It forces more of our food production to be outsourced to foreign countries. Trudeau’s carbon tax applied on the CO2 that a tomato farm in my riding has to release into its greenhouse even though that CO2 doesn't even go into the atmosphere. It goes into the plant life. Making Mexican tomatoes more affordable in my community than local tomatoes. How does that make sense?”“Common sense Conservatives have Bill C 234, which amazingly has passed the House of Commons against Justin Trudeau’s opposition,” said Poilievre.“It has now made it to the Senate and encouragingly common sense Conservatives in the upper chamber have been able to work with some other senators to win some procedural votes on this bill.”“Trudeau has said he won't allow any more carve-outs to the carbon tax. We remember that just a few weeks ago. He carved out the tax on home heating for some people in regions where his support was plummeting and his caucus was revolting, but his environment minister says he will resign,” said Poilievre.“If there are any more carve-outs. He says as long as I'm environment minister, there will be no carve-outs. That message to Justin Trudeau is very clear. He's going to have a cabinet resignation. If this Bill C 234 passes the Senate.”“We now know that Justin Trudeau’s top ministers have been frantically calling senators, begging them to block this bill,” said Poilievre.The Wheat Growers Association supports the passage of Bill C 234 as it is critical to controlling their fuel costs on propane and natural gas used for grain dryers, the heating and cooling of barns and other livestock buildings.“C-234 was brought forward to correct a gap in the legislation. Given the recent government flip-flop on the carbon tax in the Atlantic provinces for heating oil, this error should have been corrected months ago by the government. It is obvious that with few Liberal MPs across the prairies, the government has decided to continue to penalize prairie grain farmers,” said Chair Daryl Fransoo.“If the rumours that the PMO and certain cabinet ministers have pressured senators are true, this is a serious breach of parliamentary procedure and a clear indication that the current federal government has no understanding of Canadian agriculture or any desire to support us. We had hoped that the returning minister of agriculture would support us and have his voice heard at the Cabinet Table, but this is obviously not the case.”
