Brenda O’Farrell
The Advocate

It’s not a new request, but in the wake of the federal government’s scrapping of the consumer carbon tax last month, the Union des producteurs agricoles is renewing its call for the provincial government to exclude fuels used on farms from Quebec’s carbon market.

Quebec’s approach to reducing carbon emissions is not working, said Jérémie Letellier, president of the UPA’s Montérégie federation, to a gathering of producers in St. Jean sur Richelieu earlier this month. And he called on provincial authorities to give the agricultural sector needed relief.

“If we really want to undergo an energy transformation, we need an approach that is realistic, while being just and coherent with the specifics of each economic sector,” Letellier said.

He took specific aim at Quebec’s cap-and-trade system used to measure and limit greenhouse gas emissions. Known as the Système de plafonnement et d’échange de droits d’émission de gaz à effet de serre  – or SPEDE – the approach sets a cap on the amount of emissions allowed and then allows companies to trade emissions permits, with exchanges linked directly to a similar system in California.

In the agricultural sector, Quebec farmers do not have to account for the amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted from animals or manure, but must pay a surtax on diesel used by farm machinery, and propane and natural gas used for drying grains or heating barns.

“The SPEDE model does not work,” Letellier said.

“The economic impacts of the SPEDE on Quebec agriculture is substantial,” he explained.

The UPA estimates agricultural producers in Quebec have contributed $480 million to the Electrification Climate Change Fund in the last decade through surtaxes on fuel and gas products.

“It’s a colossal amount, especially in a context where producers see very slim profit margins and, in some cases, where they suffer losses given the economic situation,” Letellier said.

Farmers pay approximately 10 cents a litre on fuel, under the SPEDE structure.

UPA president Martin Caron called Quebec’s ongoing cap-and-trade approach to encourage a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions presents an injustice to the province’s farmers.

“We are told to remain competitive, but the products that arrive here do not have to pay that,” Caron said, referring to the fuel surtaxes Quebec farmers must shoulder that inflates their costs of production.

David Phaneuf, a chicken and turkey producer from St. Liboire, east of St. Hyacinthe in the Montérégie region, said the carbon taxes his farm pays is about $25,000 a year. That is the amount of the surcharges applied to the fuel and gases his operation buys to facilitate his operation.

“That’s money that is not available to reduce our company’s carbon footprint or to improve our financial situation,” Phaneuf explained at the press conference.

In his sector overall, the fuel charges work out to 0.2 cents per egg produced. It is a fee that seems small, but given the sector produces 250 million eggs a year, costs mount.

According to his figures, the surcharges cost the egg sector $500,000 a year.

Letellier said the federation is aiming that, given Ottawa’s move to eliminate the carbon tax that was in use in most other provinces before the launch of the recent federal election campaign, Quebec farmers will be able to convince the provincial government to launch an immediate review of the SPEDE mechanism it uses to cap carbon emissions, and suspend its application to the agricultural sector until a more viable alternative is found.