Bill C-234 is now before the Senate

Bill C-234 is a key bill that farmers and ranchers are anxious to see move forward with farm groups calling on the Senate to pass it quickly.

The bill would exempt the carbon tax producers pay on propane and natural gas for on-farm heating of barns and grain dryers.

Senator Rob Black is a Senator for Ontario, Chair of the Canadian Senators Group and Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry.

Black expects Bill C-234 to be introduced at second reading today (Tuesday, May 9)  which will be followed by debate, after which it will go to committee for study, before coming back to the Senate for third reading.

"My speech is ready and the last statement says colleagues I would anticipate and hope that we will move this bill forward expeditiously. I do hope it gets passed to the committee and then back to the Senate chamber very quickly because our farmers need this support - or this exemption - for this year's harvest. So here's hoping."

This week a bill put forward by Senator Rob Black to establish Food Day in Canada moved forward for Royal Assent.

Black says the Food Day in Canada Act represents an opportunity for Canadians to join together in a national celebration of Canadian food and the people who make it happen. 

"I would like to thank Parliamentarians of all stripes, from both the Senate and the House, for their thoughtful reflections on the role of agriculture from coast to coast to coast,"

He acknowledges that Food Day Canada was originally started by Anita Stewart twenty years ago when she held the world's longest barbeque.