Rural MP’s bill for farmer carbon tax exemption passes second reading

Private members’ bills are usually Hail Mary’s: long-bomb, against-the-odds attempts at passing legislation. The vast majority, even the ones put forward by members of a majority party, fail.

But a private member’s bill to add exemptions for farmers to the federal carbon tax is beating the odds. Bill C-206, put forward by MP Philip Lawrence (Conservative — Northumberland-Peterborough South), made it past second reading and to committee last month. The bill would add natural gas and propane used on-farm to the list of carbon-tax exempt fuels, with the aim to save farmers’ on grain drying.

The reason? A minority government, united opposition parties and one defection.

Lawrence said he brought the bill forward for the simple reason that it’d be good for not only his largely-rural constituents, but for farmers across the country. “It seems like it’s an incredibly trying time” to be a farmer, and he wanted to help. Other MPs agreed: the NDP and Green Party both supported his bill, as did one Liberal MP, Francis Drouin (Liberal — Glengarry-Prescott-Russell). Said Lawrence: “While certainly the NDP and Green are full-throated supporters of carbon tax and fighting climate change, they also realized this was a common-sense exemption to help farmers.”

And Lawrence said that, assuming support for the bill holds, it should actually have a chance of becoming law. He figured odds were good that it makes it through committee. Its next big test will be in the House of Commons, where it could get pushed back, or where support from the other parties could waver. But, “(I’m) confident that if the government doesn’t fall, we’ll see the day of this receiving royal assent.”

According to reporting by Real Agriculture, the federal Liberals have argued that the bill doesn’t work as intended, owing to a technicality in the wording, an argument which Lawrence has rejected. In a statement federal ag minister Marie-Claude Bibeau also said the feds would be introducing their own rebates on the carbon tax for farmers.