44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 26, 2022 10:00AM
- Apr/26/22 10:18:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague across the way for his fine speech. I have the opportunity to serve with him on the agriculture committee, which I appreciate.
He mentioned Nova Scotia wine. I will also inform him that I completed a project with him last night. I finished the final sip of a very good bottle of Nova Scotia wine.
He did not have the chance to complete his thoughts regarding agriculture in the budget. Could he comment particularly on grain drying and barn heating issues? Could he put a few thoughts on the record regarding that issue in the budget and what we are dealing with at committee?
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- Apr/26/22 10:19:25 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, I did give my colleague opposite a beautiful bottle of Nova Scotia wine. I am glad he enjoyed it.
I want to talk about a couple of initiatives that I did not have the chance to address. Our government is tripling the agriculture clean tech program. This is going to be extremely important for farmers across the country. We are also working on the on-farm climate solutions. I believe there is close to $400 million. In total, that is almost $1 billion for the agriculture sector. That is going to matter in Kings—Hants. It is going to matter across the country.
On the wine industry, in budget 2021, we had $101 million. I would like to work with this government and with the Minister of Finance to extend that timeline a little further in the days ahead so that we can continue to produce top-quality Canadian wine.
As it relates to grain drying, Bill C-8 has important initiatives. There is almost $100 million for farmers in backstop provinces. I hope this member will work with his Conservative colleagues for us to get this through so we can make a difference for Canadian farmers across the country.
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- Apr/26/22 3:27:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I serve as our party's agriculture critic, and we have certainly heard in the agriculture committee many of the concerns that my friend from Perth—Wellington has talked about. I guess the conundrum for my Conservative friends is that in their belief in the free market, sometimes that market chases areas of production that are in very undesirable countries, such as Russia. Russia, for example, supplies 16% of our fertilizer market, and of course, we are now finding those prices being impacted by the war in Ukraine.
We know Canada has vast reserves of potash, but our manufacturing capacity has been hollowed out. Would the member support our building more capacity in fertilizer manufacturing here in Canada, so we can have that resiliency and food security here in Canada, where it so rightly belongs?
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- Apr/26/22 3:29:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am really happy to hear my hon. colleague from Perth—Wellington speak to the issue of food security, which is not mentioned in this budget. I would have thought that after the pandemic and what we have experienced, we would be more conscious than ever in this country of the need to promote local food and local agriculture. Are there any other comments from the hon. member?
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- Apr/26/22 4:17:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture and the government have been working very closely with industry on a number of different files, and over the last number of years we have seen, through a lot of federal investment, growth in the industry and of our agricultural community. If I take a look at my home province of Manitoba, I see substantial growth in industries such as our pork industry, which continues to grow. Jobs were just added in the community of Saint Boniface, and as a direct result of those jobs, we will end up with more jobs in Saskatchewan, Alberta and even, to a certain degree, Ontario too.
Our agricultural community continues to grow, and I think the member is underestimating the value and the contributions our farmers and rural communities are making to our economy when he tries to give the impression that we are seeing shrinkage. In fact, there has been government investment, and we have seen growth in our rural sectors.
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- Apr/26/22 4:21:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, carbon capture is indeed very important. Far from ruling out this option, perhaps we should be looking at how to move forward faster. The agriculture sector can play a very important role in carbon capture, in my humble opinion.
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- Apr/26/22 4:52:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Shefford.
I am pleased to weigh in on the budget. It will become clear quite quickly that I am going to talk about agriculture. I have a certain bent in that direction.
Many people are disappointed because there is not much in the budget for the farming community. We are hearing announcements about the obvious things, among others, as well as things that are already under way. Specifically, we are being told that negotiations will continue for the Canadian agricultural partnership. Those negotiations are under way but have stalled because some western provinces refuse to improve the AgriStability program.
The Bloc Québécois has long suggested—and this is the position of the Union des producteurs agricoles in Quebec, by the way—that the federal government proceed with the improvement it had proposed, that is, a compensation rate of 80% of the reference margin, with the provinces that are ready to move forward.
I am reiterating that proposal today. I think it is important that we improve the performance of our insurance programs, because our farmers are the ones who feed us. These programs are supposed to make our supply chain more stable. There is a lot of talk these days about the supply chain not doing well, and so on. However, we can take steps that are going to be permanent and effective time and again.
Of course, it is not as fun for the party in power, because it cannot simply come along and suddenly announce that it is going to give such a gift or create such a program, as it is doing at the moment in the health care sector. My colleague from Mirabel just demonstrated this very eloquently. Many have spoken about the $28 billion that we need in health care, but the government announces $2 billion and expects us to be satisfied with that. This is similar to what the government is doing with the agricultural programs. We need to act quickly on this.
The next really disappointing aspect is that we are also told that an announcement is coming about compensation for supply-managed producers in the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA.
I am trying to stay calm. Enough is enough. Does the government believe in our supply management system? Does it believe in our producers and does it have any respect for them? The answer is no.
In the budget, the government boasts that, thanks to international agreements, Canada has access to all the other G7 countries, but this has come at a cost. It has cost our producers a share of the market. Our producers are efficiently organized, they protect the environment on a daily basis, they control the quantity produced and the price, they give us extremely high quality products, and yet they are constantly scorned. I am fed up. That is what I wanted to say today.
Our producers should not have to beg for four or five years to get compensation for CUSMA. They have scrapes on their knees from dragging themselves through the muck. It looks like the government is trying to keep them civil, by saying that it will give them something soon and that they should behave. Enough is enough. Can we resolve this, please? It is extremely disappointing. We know that the negotiations are over and that the amounts have been established. The money needs to be paid so that we can move on to something else.
Over time, the government is neglecting producers in supply-managed industries. I suspect this is not the first time I am saying this in the House, but I will say it again today. I feel like this government is being sneaky by chipping away at our supply-managed industry markets, letting time go by, allowing unfair competition from outside that undermines our system, and delaying compensation to harm that system so that it disappears through no fault of the government. My message to the government is that if its intention is to get rid of supply management, it needs to say so and own that politically. The Bloc Québécois has the solution. We are going to introduce another law to protect it. We are going to ask the government to pay compensation right away.
As usual, I can see that I will not have enough time to say even one-tenth of the things I wanted to say.
Let us talk about the next generation of farmers. In the previous Parliament, my esteemed colleague from Brandon—Souris introduced a bill that he asked me to co-sponsor, which I was happy to do. We had an excellent working relationship with the NDP folks at the time, and we succeeded in passing a bill that made it no less financially attractive to transfer the family business to one's own child as to a stranger.
At present, the situation is the same as it was before the bill was passed. It is utter nonsense for a government that claims to understand the importance of business succession, agriculture and the need to feed people. It is appalling and disgusting. I am about to say something unparliamentary, so I will stop here.
What is even more surprising is that this legislation was passed. If the government wanted to make changes to it and question it, then it could have done so in the last Parliament, which it actually did in committee and in the House. The bill was then debated in the Senate and the matter was settled. When legislation is passed in the Senate, it has to come into force.
Well, to my great surprise, last year, the Minister of Finance held a press conference the next day to announce that her government would wait six months before enacting this legislation, claiming that she was not happy with it. What does that mean? Where is the democracy? Parliament passed the bill by a majority vote because the majority of its elected members respect farmers and want to ensure their future. Can the government take action? Obviously we put pressure on the government and the government people backed off. They agreed to enforce this legislation, but very shortly afterward, they announced that they would make changes.
I am talking about it here because there are still no numbers or anything in the budget. However, it is noted that a change will be made to this legislation because “the exception [in the legislation] may unintentionally permit surplus stripping without requiring that a genuine intergenerational business transfer takes place.” Putting it in my own words, that means “we will delay the enforcement of this legislation because we suspect our small farmers of being a bunch of fraudsters”.
At the same time, the government is doing nothing about tax havens, as has been the case for many years. It is estimated that we lose at least $7 billion a year to tax havens in dozens of countries. Everyone is aware of this. It is perfectly legal and completely ironic, and I do not understand why people are not more outraged.
However, when farmers want to sell their farms to a son or a daughter, they are told that they may well be fraudsters and the process is delayed by getting tough and closing any loopholes. This is going to have consequences. According to the government's official line, the law is in force and transactions can go ahead. However, in reality, according to what I have been told, financial advisors, accountants and notaries are all telling our farmers that they do not know what the government is going to do with the legislation and that they are taking a very big risk if they go ahead with their transactions at this time.
They are therefore suggesting to farmers that they delay selling, which will again result in sales to strangers. However, selling to a stranger has the same effect as killing supply management. This is about land use. If a farmer sells the land to a neighbour instead of selling it to a son, there will be only two farms left in a zone that used to have 20, and the residents will complain that the town school is empty, which is obvious. This is all part of a whole. When production is stable, it keeps our economy going.
To conclude, I will say that the Bloc Québécois has done what it usually does, which is to work constructively. Last night, the House voted on our amendment to the amendment. If something is not to our liking, we do not say that everything is bad and that we should vote against it; we propose changes.
However, the House voted against our amendment to the amendment. The NDP-Liberal coalition refused to increase old age security starting at age 65. I want people to remember that when they flock to hear the brilliant speeches about how they claim to be working for everyone.
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- Apr/26/22 5:02:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, for the first part of his speech, the member talked a great deal about supply management and tried to plant the seed of doubt in terms of where this government stands on supply management. Virtually from day one, going back to 2015, the Minister of Agriculture has been very clear that we support supply management. In fact, it was a Liberal administration many years ago that created supply management. The difference is that the government understands that Canada is a trading nation, and we continue to negotiate the trade agreements that provide the types of jobs that are so important to our middle class and for growing our economy.
Does the member not recognize the benefits of having these trade agreements and understand and appreciate that there is no hidden agenda here? We created supply management. We will continue to protect the need for supply management for the fine work that it does.
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- Apr/26/22 5:05:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, whom I serve on the agriculture committee with.
When I look at the agricultural section of the budget, it is nice to finally see a reference to climate change when speaking to agriculture. He will know that our committee is currently studying agriculture's contributions to climate change.
I am wondering, based on the witness testimony he has heard at committee, what kind of recommendations he hopes to see eventually in our report that may serve as a firm basis for recommendations we can make for government policy in the future.
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- Apr/26/22 5:05:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for his question about a part of my speech that I did not have a chance to get to because I was so emotional in the first part.
We are working on it. I think that agriculture can play a huge role in the environment. I think it is important to provide direct compensation for positive actions. I would say that the one positive in what was announced is the on-farm climate action fund. It is not enough money, but it is a step forward, and we will keep an eye on what is happening. I would like to work with the government to move things forward. It is very important that this money be decentralized, that positive actions be compensated and that this money be available to our agricultural entrepreneurs, because they are the only ones who know when to invest in their business.
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