Ag Critic Says Liberal Budget Misses Key Areas That Could Help Pandemic Recovery

Apr 21, 2021

This week's Federal Budget shows Ottawa is planning to return some of the carbon tax money that farmers are paying for natural gas and propane.

Lianne Rood, the Conservative Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, says for over a year now she's been calling on Minister Bibeau

to extend the carbon tax exemption in this area.

"This proposal to refund a portion of the carbon tax to farmers. Hey, it's a start! And you know, it takes some public pressure to get this government moving on things in agriculture. So, this is a start, and I'd like to see where exactly it's going to go? Hopefully we can get the full exemption for farmers for carbon tax on propane and natural gas."

Details on just how that carbon tax will be refunded will be announced later.

Rood says this week's Federal Budget has no real spending for Agriculture, to help with production.

She's disappointed that the money they are spending is not going to programs that would help ensure our food sovereignty and get money into the pockets of farmers.

"Farmers are looking for a hand up not a handout. And it would have been nice to see a little bit more money poured into programs that would help towards revenue generating industries like agriculture."

Overall, she says this is not a recovery plan for Canadians, this is the Liberal party's re-election plan.

"I think if the liberals were focused on getting our country back on track, that they would have targeted their stimulus towards revenue generating industries in this country. Like oil and gas, like agriculture, but instead, we see that this budget is actually extending the pandemic economic recession longer than necessary, which is only hurting Canadians."

Voting on the Liberal Budget is expected later this week.

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