Group discusses carbon tax
By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay visited a farm in Gray, Sask., south of Regina, on Thursday.
And Trudeau found himself climbing into the driver’s seats of combines and sprayers.
The tour highlighted the success of Canadian canola and its producers. The Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission helped organize the tour.
“We (were) very pleased and honoured to have had a chance to host the Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister and demonstrate how a Saskatchewan farming operation functions,” Todd Lewis, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan and host to the federal delegates, said in a statement.
During his time on the farm, Trudeau learned about the various technologies, many developed in Western Canada, used by farmers to make agriculture more sustainable.
“Glad to see how you guys have developed some amazing ways to succeed,” Trudeau said, according to the Canadian Press. “(It’s) a real point of pride for all of Canada.”
And the topic of sustainability led to a discussion of the pending carbon tax.
Under Trudeau’s government, provinces must set up a cap-and-trade system or put a price on carbon of at least $10 per tonne in 2018. By 2022, the price on carbon could be $50 per tonne.
The money collected from the tax is to be reinvested into the province from which it came.
The carbon tax rewards those who reduce their carbon footprint, Trudeau said during a news conference at a local rink.
But produces are concerned the tax could hurt them.
“We don’t want to be alarmists, but we want to be realists and look at what is coming down the road,” Jacob Froese, president of the Canadian Canola Growers Association, told the Canadian Press. “They (government officials) have to find a way to neutralize the tax on producers.”
The opportunity to speak with Trudeau directly about the carbon tax is a good starting point, Lewis said.
“We (have to) start the conversation,” he told the Canadian Press. “As somebody once said, if you’re not at the dinner table, you’re probably on the menu and today we’re at the dinner table.”