Tako Van Popta

“Madam Speaker, it is always an honour and a privilege to rise on behalf of the great people of southwest and west central Saskatchewan. Before I begin, I will mention that I will be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Skyview. Back home in southwest and west central Saskatchewan, the harvest is, according to the Government of Saskatchewan data, about 97% to 98% complete, which basically means that people are looking to clean up the sloughs they had to leave because they are still a little too green or a few areas of their fields need to be cleaned up a bit later. By and large, the harvest is complete. I want to say thanks and send a big congratulations to all the farmers back home who have completed another harvest season. It is definitely not without its challenges. We have the diesel prices, which we we are dealing with today. We had a lovely three inches of rain in the middle of harvest that put people, in some cases as much as 10 days out of the field, having to wait for the fields to dry up so they can get back to harvesting again. We will never complain about getting rain, but that was certainly something we were not anticipating. Nevertheless, we will take rain whenever we can get it. I would give them another quick congratulations. When we look at the prairie economy, in Saskatchewan, in particular, but this would be true of Manitoba and of Alberta, the manufacturing capacity we have in Saskatchewan is largely based on agricultural manufacturing. I am from a farming community called Frontier. My parents farmed south of Frontier. We have two success stories in Frontier. The first one is Friggstad Manufacturing. Friggstad Manufacturing started off making air seeders, cultivators and various farm implements in Frontier. Olaf Friggstad was the visionary behind it. The Friggstad family, including Olaf and his brothers, some family members, his sons and his nephews, got into the family business and created a terrific company. It was eventually bought out by Flexi-Coil and relocated to Saskatoon. Then replacing that, there was a brief period of Talon Tools operating out of the plant, but then Honey Bee Manufacturing replaced it. Honey Bee Manufacturing, to this day, is still operating in Frontier. It has doubled the shop capacity it took over when it bought the plant location. It exports combine headers around the world and has done very well. There are many other successful farming operations that have become manufacturing products. Honey Bee started in a shop. The Honey brothers made a big tractor and created swathers and headers. They had the idea and started in their own shop before they moved to the plant in Frontier. When we look around the province, there are many great companies in existence. I think of companies like Schulte, Seed Hawk and Väderstad. In Swift Current, there is S3 as well, which is across multiple provinces. It even has some operations in the United States. It does very well. We have a very unique irrigation project in Saskatchewan. I mentioned Lake Diefenbaker in a question earlier. I want to talk about a smaller project. There is a water reservoir called Duncairn Dam. Out of that, they irrigate toward a little community called Rush Lake, a small town in Saskatchewan. They irrigate from Duncairn Dam. They built this a long time ago, long before we had sophisticated equipment. They are able to channel irrigation to get all the way down to Rush Lake from Duncairn. It is probably about 50 kilometres of channels to get all the way to Rush Lake from Duncairn. It is flood irrigation that happens there, and they produce at least 30,000 hay bales in a given year. There are people growing hay crops. There is a bit of grain and cereal crops in there as well. It is mostly used by ranchers to grow the hay that they need to get their crops off. The Rush Lake hay bales are definitely a local legend. Everybody knows about the Rush Lake hay flats, and that is what it is largely used for. My family has benefited from this in the past. My uncle Darcy and my grandpa Albert owned some plots in the Rush Lake hay flats. Everybody in the area knows about the Rush Lake hay bales and what that represents for the area. It is a success story of what modern prairie farming ingenuity actually entails. When we look at all of this, what is the common thread to Bill C-38, which we are debating here today? This is about the Canadian fuel affordability act, which would remove some of the federal tax on fuel. Diesel fuel, as I said earlier, drives the national economy, such as the machinery used to pull a Friggstad air seeder or cultivator, which I did on my farm growing up. I proudly drove our 9280 Case and pulled a Friggstad cultivator, and we had a Friggstad air drill. Our header for our combine was a Honey Bee header, so we supported the local economy that way, but the diesel fuel that powered this equipment was very important, and that is what this motion is about here today. I was talking to some of the producers in my area. Back in April, the price of diesel went from $1.38 to $1.95 for the farm bulk price in seven days. At the end of April, when farmers were planning to get their crops in the field, they were looking to purchase the fuel that they needed to get through seeding season, and the price went from $1.38 to $1.95. That is a direct hit to the bottom lines of our farmers, and that is a cost that farmers cannot pass on. Grain farmers cannot pass that cost on; they have to pay whatever the current price is. There is no relief for them. The only relief that does exist is that they can get an exemption on GST. They have to pay the GST up front, but they can get that back. That does not change the fact that they were paying $1.95 in April, right at the peak of seeding season in Saskatchewan. Let us fast-forward to September. From the middle of September to the end of September, the price for diesel was about $2.25 a litre. It kind of fluctuated from there down to about $1.90, right at the peak of harvest season. I was talking to some producers. One farmer I spoke to had used 100,000 litres of fuel to get through harvest. His combines, the tractors that he uses to pull the grain carts in the field, the semi-trucks that he uses to haul the grain from the field back to the bins or maybe to the elevator or to the local terminal all use diesel fuel. I look at $2.25 a litre in the middle of harvest; that is what our producers are having to deal with. I am talking to farmers who have had to basically budget a doubling in the price of fuel in order for them to operate their farms. When they are trying to forecast for next year, they are already looking at the price of fuel and understanding they are going to have to write an even higher number in there to get the crop in the ground in April and May this coming year. That is what our farmers are facing here today. That is why we had a motion. The government voted against it shamefully and defeated our opposition day motion that we had a few weeks ago, speaking to the diesel price. We are approximately 24¢ per litre higher than the United States on average and 31¢ per litre higher than the world average. That is what our farmers and our producers have to deal with and what they are faced with. It is not because of something extraordinary that is happening here. It is because of other federal taxes. I will applaud the government here today for this bill extending a bit of fuel tax relief to our farmers, producers and truckers, to make sure that they can have a little more cost certainty in getting things done. However, the government can go so much further. There is so much more that it can do, to provide that meaningful relief. We had that opposition day motion before the House. The government voted against it shamefully. It is ridiculous that its members would do that. Again, this is how it directly impacts the price of food: If I am going to the grocery store to buy groceries, the groceries do not just magically appear at the shelf. Everything gets to the grocery stores and everything gets to the clothing stores. Winter is coming up in Saskatchewan, so all the kids’ ski pants, jackets, toques, mitts and sports equipment get to the store. They were brought in on a truck that went down Highway 1, through my riding, to get to wherever they are going. Whether they came up from the States or came in from a port, they came in on a truck and were transported across this country. The fuel prices in Canada are skyrocketing, and there is still more that the government could do to provide that relief. The House could do those things that would actually help to bring down the cost of essentials for Canadians, whether it is food, fuel, fertilizer or kids’ winter clothes that they need to be able to get through the winter or the sports equipment that they need to be able to have a little bit of fun. Also, lots of parents drive diesel-powered vehicles, SUVs or trucks. That extra 24¢ to 31¢ a litre is impacting the ability of Canadians to just enjoy a few nice little things like playing hockey or playing volleyball.”