The House of Common's is on their winter break with MP's back in their riding.

John Barlow, the Conservative Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Agri-Food says it was a busy session from getting the Liberals to back down on front of package labelling to getting Bill C234 through committee.

"Which is an exemption of the carbon tax from natural gas and propane on farms. You know, our farmers are facing skyrocketing input costs, and this is just another opportunity for them to remain economically viable. So, those are two big wins that we had. It's not a win yet, but certainly raising awareness to not only producers but Canadian consumers on the Liberal's fertilizer emissions policy. I think has gone a long way to educate Canadians on the impact this will have on our food security and affordability."

Barlow says while they've had some good wins, there's always more work to do when it comes to Liberal policy and the impact on Agriculture, especially the ongoing issue and impact of the carbon tax.

"We saw that stat from the food report that came out a couple of weeks ago. That when liberals triple the carbon tax, a typical 5000-acre farm will be paying $150,000 a year in carbon taxes. That makes Canadian agriculture unsustainable economically. There's no farm that I know, that that can absorb those kinds of costs."

He points out there's also the need to set up a vaccine bank for Foot and Mouth Disease.

Barlow says this is critical now that the U.S. has said almost a year ago that they are not going to share their vaccine bank anymore.

"We need Canada to step up and get the resources to have a made-in-Canada solution to that. To have the Minister of Agriculture sign off on the gene editing protocol Health Canada's already done. CFIA has not done that. That is vital to our competitiveness, but also our ability to attract investment and embrace new innovation and new technologies."

He says there's a couple of big issues coming down, and obviously, we still have avian flu and some of these things that we're still dealing with as well.

He notes while they've had some key wins they still have more work to do, as they hold the Liberals to account.

To hear more of Glenda-Lee's conversation with John Barlow click on the link below.