By David Krayden – The Post Millennial
Vacant farms without crops. Grocery stores lacking any foodstuffs. People starving in their homes or on the streets. It could happen in Canada because of the Liberal government’s war on farmers.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is waging that war and it could well create an artificial famine in Canada like the kind the Soviet Union experienced during the 1930s.
Farmers are being put in a position of non-productivity and that has begun with restrictions on the use of fertilizer – deemed to be a source of those nefarious greenhouse gasses.
Even if Canada eliminated all of its greenhouse gasses by eliminating all gas-powered vehicles and shutting off its electricity, natural gas, propane and oil, it would make little difference on the global carbon footprint since it produces less than 2 percent of world emissions.
But that hasn’t impeded the Trudeau government from making Canadians suffer in the fight against climate change and farmers have been a priority target.
Agriculture Canada admitted that it wants to reduce the use of fertilizer by 30 percent from 2020 levels by 2030 in its “2022-2023 Departmental Results Report” released in August 2023.
“The Department published a “What We Heard Report” compiling the feedback received, which will inform AAFC’s work in collaboration with the sector, towards meeting the target of a 30 percent reduction of fertilizer use from 2020 levels by 2030. To this end, AAFC created a new government-industry Fertilizer Working Group, co-chaired by the Department and Fertilizer Canada, to collaboratively work to reduce fertilizer emissions while protecting the livelihoods of Canadian farming families.”
Justin Trudeau has dismissed reports of the fertilizer reduction as “misinformation.”
In the “Message from the Minister” preface to a July 2023 “What We Heard Report,” the following statement seeks to provide reassurance to farmers overwhelmed by taxes and regulations on virtually every aspect of their business. “I would like to be clear, there is no mandatory reduction in fertilizer use on Canadian farms. Instead, we want to support measures that producers can take voluntarily to reduce their emissions over the long term, without curtailing growth in crop yields.”
That document refers to “an ambitious national target to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with fertilizer application by 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030.”
There has been nothing voluntary about any of Trudeau’s climate change initiatives and during the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccine and masking mandates were the rule if people wanted to travel, work or live normally.
Besides, the Liberals have made it easier to use less fertilizer by imposing a 35 percent tariff on all Russian imports in 2022. Fertilizer is a major Russian export to Canada.
Canadian farmers are also heavily burdened by Trudeau’s federal carbon tax on gasoline and natural gas and propane. This will cost farmers $978 million by 2030.
According to Statistics Canada, the net income for Canadian farmers fell 8.3 percent in 2022 and the expense of running a farm increased by 21.2 percent in 2022, the largest gain since 1974, when it was 22 percent.
Farmers thought they would be exempted from the Liberals’ carbon tax on natural gas through Bill C-234. But after the private member’s bill passed through the House of Commons, the legislation was gutted by a Parliamentary committee and could be approved by the Senate of Canada without offering any financial relief to farmers.
Farmers could also be hit by Trudeau’s bizarre plan to magically lower the price of groceries. Initially, he talked about “a tax” on major stores without explaining what kind of tax it would be or how it would work to reduce prices. Then he demanded that major grocery stores come up with “a plan” to lower prices by Canada’s Thanksgiving. When that didn’t happen, the federal government asked the grocery chains to try again. The grocery store CEOs are expected to appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture on Nov. 2 to provide an update.
If the stores are mandated to reduce prices, they will certainly pass that shortfall onto farmers.
The result will be a scarcity of food in the stores and less food produced on the farms.
The ultimate consequence could be an artificial, made-in-Canada famine created completely on ideological grounds – just like the one that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin created in Ukraine and parts of Russia in 1932-33.
It may not be as catastrophic as the Stalinist version when millions perished, but Canada’s famine would be just as unnecessary and unjust.