(farmnewsNOW file photo)

By Dori Modney

private member's bill

Conservative MP seeks carbon tax relief for farmers dealing with “Harvest from hell”

Feb 18, 2020 | 9:09 PM

OTTAWA, ON. — Conservative Member of Parliament for Northumberland—Peterborough South, Philip Lawrence, tabled a Private Members Bill in the House of Commons on Tuesday (Feb 18), defined as An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, which impacts qualifying farming fuel.

The Bill will exempt qualifying farmers from paying the Liberal Carbon Tax on gasoline, diesel fuel, propane and natural gas, saving them tens of thousands of dollars a year on necessary farming procedures.

Lawrence notes that in recent years, farmers have faced unpredictable weather conditions, trade disruptions and global pricing instability, and to add insult to injury, the Liberal Carbon Tax is cutting farmers’ net income by over 12%. By changing a few words in the legislation, the new Bill can save farmers millions of dollars.

The Grain Growers of Canada, believe the legislative change is required to ensure the long-term sustainability of the family farm, and hope the legislation will receive support from across Party lines.

Keystone Agricultural Producers also points out, farmers don’t have access to economical alternative sources of energy and are also expecting the Liberal government to show support for farmers by passing this bill.

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The Grain Growers of Canada (CGC) are also calling on the federal government to support farmers after the harvest from hell.

GGC chair Jeff Nielsen says, “We now need our federal government to step up.”

“We have received broad support from opposition parties calling for immediate relief from the carbon tax for farmers after the disaster that was last year’s harvest.”

The CGC wants to see members be directly reimbursed from the federal government for the millions of extra dollars they have paid to dry their grain as a result of the carbon tax. Ultimately, it believes that a full fuel exemption will avoid the need for any future relief measures after events like last year’s harvest.

Nielsen says this issue is to important to delay.

“We are working with our member groups to compile data and share the real cost of the carbon tax with Hon. Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau. This is why we have launched harvestfromhell.ca. It is an important avenue for farmers to demonstrate the burden that the carbon tax has inflicted on their operations.”

For more information, visit www.harvestfromhell.ca.