Passage of Bill C-234 Critical to Preserving Competitiveness of Canadian Agriculture

The General Manager of the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board suggests the passage of Bill C-234 is critical to preserving the ability of Canadian farmers to compete in an international market place.

Bill C-234, a private member's bill that will create specific exemptions for farmers to Canada's carbon pricing scheme has passed in the House of Commons and is now awaiting passage in the Senate.

Mark Ferguson, the General Manager of the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board, says Saskatchewan's farmers are very supportive of the exemption and were pleased to see it pass through the House of Commons.

Quote-Mark Ferguson-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board:

Pork producers have had a difficult couple of years.Starting with the drought in the summer of 2021 and extending through to today our feed prices have been really high and, while we've had some good hog prices throughout this time period, that kind of ended this spring as our futures prices declined so right now producers are losing money and inflation is affecting basically all the other costs on the farm.

A big part of that inflation is our energy costs for electricity and for natural gas so having the carbon tax exemption on natural gas would provide a significant benefit to farms.

Right now, we've estimated that this carbon tax costs producers anywhere between one and three dollars per hog and it's only going to go up.It's becoming a very significant cost for the farms and the exemption will help substantially with our cost of production.

I will add that producers in other countries, especially our main competitors such as the U.S. don't have a carbon tax so it's making it very difficult for Canadian hog farms to compete.

Ferguson says farmers pay their energy bills each month so the quicker Bill C-234 can move forward the better.