MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY - Area Member of Parliament Earl Dreeshen has tabled a 25-signature petition in the House of Commons calling for farmers to be exempt from all direct and indirect carbon tax costs and for the repeal of the federal Clean Fuel Standard.
“Canadian farmers and ranchers are losing tens-of-thousands of dollars in net income each year because of the Liberal government’s ill-conceived carbon tax and that is simply not sustainable for most of them,” the Red Deer-Mountain View Conservative MP said Tuesday, Feb. 23.
“Our global competitors are not burdened by the huge carbon tax debt. But Canadian farmers and ranchers do not have the ability to add the carbon tax levy to the price of their product. They have to pay this tax as it is levied by their input suppliers.
“Exempting input costs will put Canadian farmers on an equal footing with their international competitors and allow them to keep producing the world’s best and most nutritious foods.”
According to the parliamentary budget officer, a farm in Alberta with 850 seeded acres of crops can expect the Liberal government’s carbon tax to cost it more than $17,000 per year once the carbon tax reaches $50 per tonne in 2022, he said.
The federal government is also proceeding with the so-called Clean Fuel Standard (CFS), which some studies estimate will represent a total cost to the Canadian economy of $7 billion to $15 billion and 50,000 lost jobs, including an impact of $389 million to the agricultural sector, he said.
“Nobody needs or wants an extra tax on top of another tax so we need to repeal the CFS before it even gets off the ground,” said Dreeshen.
The MP plans to table several similar petitions in the coming weeks, said spokesperson Colin Connon.
The Red Deer-Mountain View riding includes Mountain View County and portions of Red Deer County.
