Randy Hoback

Mr. Speaker, farmers across Canada are now harvesting the crops they worked all year to grow, but as harvest begins, farmers are facing a major challenge: the skyrocketing cost of diesel. Diesel powers the combines and tractors working in our fields. It powers the trains that move our grain and the trucks that deliver it. When the cost of fuel goes up, the farmer's revenue goes down. A single combine can use more than 1,100 dollars' worth of diesel in one day of harvest. Farmers should be focusing on harvesting their crops, not on how they are going to pay their diesel bills. The Liberal government needs to act. Our emergency fuel relief plan would cut diesel taxes and get more fuel produced here at home. Canadians need affordable fuel to get through the harvest and keep our economy moving. It is time for the government to put Canadians first.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Essex, who has been a breath of fresh air since he came to this House. He has done a great job. He represents the people of his riding. I have been to his riding and met first-hand all the wonderful people in that area. I want them to know they have a great member. I look forward to working with him for years to come. In Saskatchewan right now, it is spring seeding time. It is a tough time right now, because seeding is about three weeks later than it should be. People are stressed. They are burning the midnight oil, or burning the candle at both ends, one might say, to get the crop in because of the timely nature of the crops they are planting. I want to mention this in the little time I have. To farmer friends in my riding, across Saskatchewan and across Canada, slow down, take a breath, relax and be safe out there. To those who are working in agricultural districts or driving down those roads, remember that those farmers are working really hard and they are have time constraints. Give them space on the road. If people see a tractor coming down the road, they should slow down and let them go by. If they see a sprayer, slow down and let them go by. Let them do their business, because it is so crucial right now, in this next week or two, that they get the crop in as quickly as they can. Trust me when I say these are stressful conditions. Farmers are wet and they are frustrated. I have been there and done that. I have been up to my knees and up to my waist, and I know what it is like to pull a tractor out. I never got the tractor stuck. That was always my dad. I will say that, or at least that is what I will admit to. Talking about stress leads to what we are talking about today. Canadians are stressed. They are financially stressed. They are feeling the impact of costs going up. They are feeling the impact of their wages just not keeping up with what they have to pay per week or per month for the standard cost of living. We are not talking about surplus things or things that are just a benefit. I am talking about the day-to-day requirements to actually feed a family or put clothes on kids and get them off to school. Those are the types of costs that Canadians are struggling with. In a lot of cases, people are maxing out their credit cards. They are looking at ways to save money, but there is just nothing left to cut. That is where we, as a government, can play a role. That is one of the proposals we have made today. It is a simple solution that could immediately be implemented, and its impact could be felt immediately, without a huge bureaucracy being created and without a whole pile of spending on administrating and trying to create new programs. It is a very simple choice, which is to remove the fuel tax on diesel and gas. Instantaneously, that would provide relief at the pumps. It would not only provide relief for the family, but provide relief for the guys who are hauling the food to the warehouse or from the warehouse to the grocery store. It would provide a domino effect of relief through all sectors here in Canada that would make life just that much easier. Hopefully, those costs would trickle down to the consumer and make life just a little easier for that consumer, that Canadian citizen, to make ends meet. We proposed very simple measures. Get rid of the federal tax on gas and diesel, including the GST, and then permanently scrap the clean fuel standard. I am going to talk about the clean fuel standard right now. What is frustrating with this tax is that it is a tax. No matter how the Liberals want to bury it, it is a tax and it is a cost that will get through the supply chain to the end consumer. It always does. Those costs are always passed up the chain, and they will probably be passed up with a multiplier effect as margins are added to them all the way through. They end up in the consumer's back pocket, and those costs are hurting it. This tax also makes our manufacturers, suppliers and international traders uncompetitive in the global marketplace. What do I mean by that? The reality is that these are costs Canadian manufacturers and Canadian producers face, but their competitors around the world do not. These are costs that they have to embed into their pricing as they try to recover the costs and sell abroad that their competition does not have to. Automatically, they have one hand tied behind their back, yet we are telling them to diversify trade, take on new markets and find new ways of doing things. What do we do? We battle. We are basically putting more costs into the situation they are facing. It just does not make sense. We want to improve Canada's ability to market and sell around the world, which I agree with. I think those are good, honourable things to do. I have been pro-free trade all my life. Coming from the agriculture sector in Saskatchewan, we trade and we sell stuff around the world. We sell to clients in China, South America, North Africa and Europe. We are doing business around the world all the time. We are competing with Brazilians, Australians and Americans. We are competing with people around the world who do not have those restraints and those embedded costs. It actually makes it tougher for us to compete. However, we are very creative in Canada. Our farmers are the best in the world. They are quick adopters of new technology. They are very astute and they are competing. They can compete, even though they have had one hand tied behind their back so many times over the last few years. All we are saying is to take the hand from behind their backs and put them on a level playing field. That is what we are saying here by removing the clean fuel standard. It is not just farmers, but manufacturers and the whole Canadian economy that could find more relief and a greater ability to compete internationally by having this removed from their cost platform. I want to circle back to families and the stresses they are facing. I go to events. We held passport clinics in the riding a few weeks back, I sat down at the table and talked to people who were coming in to get passports for their kids. They may travel over the next five or six years. When I held these clinics over the last two or three years, people were talking about a trip they were going to take the next year or the year after. When I talk to them now, they say, “We want to get our passport because it is convenient and it is easy, and thanks for offering the service, but I do not know if we will ever use it because I just cannot afford to travel. I just cannot afford to take on any luxuries like travel, but I want to have my passport.” When we drive down and ask how they are doing, what is going on in their family and how their babies are, I hear a little softening in their tone and see them biting on their lip or a tear in their eye. They say, “It is tough. We had to make the choice this year between letting our kids play baseball or play golf. We had to make the choice this year of whether we are going to put our kids in swimming lessons. We looked at the cost and we just cannot afford it.” They want to make sure that their kids have all of the opportunities to play different sports and experience what they all grew up with, but they say, “I do not know if we can afford it. I do not know if we can do it.” I was talking to one guy. He said, “I have three jobs because I want my kids to play hockey. I want them to experience hockey, but that means I have three jobs.” His wife is also working in that family of four. Two parents are working just so their kids can play hockey. Something is wrong with this equation. Looking back, what has happened? What is wrong? It is 10 years of bad policy. It has been 10 years of ignoring what really needs to be done through policy to make sure that Canadians can thrive, grow, experience the benefits of being a Canadian citizen and have the “top of the world” lifestyle that we became accustomed to in the years before the last 10 years of the Liberal government. These are the things that people are looking at, and they are saying, “It never used to be this way. Why is it now?” Let us look at it. We drove away industry. We brought in policies that no other country in the world has. We have done it all under the guise of being for the environment. I think a lot of people would agree that it is important to take care of our environment, and I agree with that. Canadians would agree with that, but they did not need to be the Boy Scouts of it. They did not need to be the ones doing it all by themselves. Keep in mind that we produce 2% of global emissions, yet we thought we were taking on the world and we are trying to find a way to solve 100% of global emissions. We cannot do it by ourselves, but the government is asking our businesses and our families to pay for all of this with really no benefit at the end of the day to actually make a change in the environment. Going back to these families, they are struggling. They are looking for a way to make ends meet. They want to give their kids a good quality of life. They want to see some hope and a light at the end of the tunnel. They want to see that they are through this rough patch and this structural change that is going on in the U.S. and things like that, and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. However, from the current government, there has been no policy, really, that has impacted people's day-to-day functions. The Liberals talk about different subsidy programs that they put in place, and they all sound good, but at the end of the day, they are not hitting the mark. They are not actually helping Canadian families. With respect to this policy and these changes, if we were to implement them tomorrow, the impact would be felt immediately. At least families would know right out to the end of the year that for the summer season and going into the fall, they would have some relief. They would know that as the economy picks up and as their job and everything else stabilize, they would be good. That is why this common-sense Conservative approach is something the Liberals should steal. They are good at stealing good Conservative policies. Why not steal this one? Canadians would benefit from it.

Mr. Speaker, I know the sincerity of the hon. member's heart. His approach to it is one way of approaching it. Is it the right way? Is it the most efficient way? That is where we would differ. The need is there. There is no question about it. However, I would like to make sure that families have good jobs, high-paying jobs, so they do not have to go to the federal government for a food program. I would like to make sure that they keep that money in their back pocket, so that they can spend it as they choose. That is the difference between the Conservative approach and the Liberal approach. Liberals would like to create a new bureaucracy, and they would like to dole out the money as they see fit. No, people should keep their money, so they can spend it as they see fit. They worked hard to earn it. While we understand that the issues are there, there are different ways of approaching it. Our way makes more sense. That is why we should do it the Conservative way.

Mr. Speaker, I understand where the member is coming from. Actually, it depends on the demographics. If someone is in rural Saskatchewan, they are not wealthy, by any means. They are a hard-working family with a middle-class income. Reducing fuel costs for them makes a difference. They do drive. If they are going for groceries, they are driving 50 kilometres one way. That is the reality in Saskatchewan. It may be different in Quebec. I do understand that maybe there are different requirements in Quebec, as there are for a lot of other things for which Quebec has different requirements than the rest of Canada. I acknowledge that. Here is something very simple for rural people in rural Canada that would benefit them immediately. It would. For somebody in downtown Toronto or downtown Montreal who takes the bus to work, maybe the benefit is not there. Maybe they need something different. If we could let people keep more of their money, or, in this situation, if we get rid of the clean fuel standard so that the cost of what they are buying is cheaper, then they will feel that benefit.

Mr. Speaker, I have worked with my colleague on the trade committee in the past, and I know she is someone who understands trade and how important it is for Canadian products to get to the world market. The concern I have in her speech is that she talked about the importance of trade, but she did not mention the fact that if we cannot get the product to market, how do we actually achieve those results? One of the problems we have in Canada is that our ports are ranked next to dead last and our rail system is unreliable. Our infrastructure is just not there. Where does the member see growth happening with this budget if it does not address the issues with our ports?