Bill Exempting Farm Fuel and Heating From Federal Carbon Tax Passes the House

A farmer drives a wheat planting rig, with the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop, near Cremona, Alta., on May 6, 2022. The Canadian Press/Jeff McIntosh

A Conservative private member’s bill has passed the House of Commons that aims to remove the federal carbon tax from natural gas and propane used on farms for vital activities such as grain drying and the heating of barns.

Bill C-234, sponsored by Conservative MP Ben Lobb, passed third reading on March 29 by a vote of 176–146.

Both the Bloc Québécois and the NDP voted in favour of sending the bill to the Senate for further consideration.

Voting against the bill were 145 Liberal MPs along with Independent MP Han Dong, who recently resigned from the Liberal caucus amid allegations that he had advised a Chinese diplomat in Toronto in 2021 that Beijing should delay releasing detained Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

However, the Liberals did not whip the vote, as three of the party’s East Coast MPs voted in favour of the bill.

Green Party MPs Elizabeth May and Mike Morrice also voted in favour.

Bill C-234 aims to amend the 2018 Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to “expand the definition of eligible farming machinery and extend the exemption for qualifying farming fuel to marketable natural gas and propane.”

Speaking in the House a year ago after moving that the bill be read a second time and referred to a committee, Lobb said an increase to the carbon tax would hike natural gas and propane price rates, which in turn would affect farmers who use both to “dry grain and heat livestock barns where there may be a variety of livestock.”

“The problem is with the current carbon tax on these areas,” Lobb said on March 25, 2022.

Carbon Tax

Lobb added at the time that a pork farmer in his riding of Huron-Bruce, Ontario, had sent him his December 2021 natural gas bill showing that he had to pay nearly $11,400 for usage on his hog barn, with the carbon tax accounting for over $2,900, or 25 percent of the bill.

“Farmers do not get credit for any of the environmental good that they do,” Lobb said, adding, “They get no credit for any of the carbon sequestration of their crops. They get no credit for their grasslands or woodlots. There is no credit for that.”

The federal carbon tax is set to increase by 23 percent on April 1, according to Ottawa’s current climate plan, bringing the price of fuel up to $65 per tonne.

Due to further annual hikes on the tax, the price of fuel is then set to rise by $15 every year until 2029–30, by which time fuel will cost $170 per tonne, according to government figures.

The Conservatives tried to stop the planned carbon tax hike through a motion in the House of Commons in September 2022, but the motion was defeated.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre then introduced another motion to exempt home-heating fuel from the carbon tax increase, but it was defeated by a vote of 116–202 in October 2022.

Andrew Chen contributed to this report.