44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 23, 2023 11:00AM
- Oct/23/23 2:52:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, farmers can no longer carry the burden of the NDP-Liberal government.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, vegetable farmers warned Canadians about why the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. The price of fresh vegetables is already up 12%. The Liberals' front-of-pack warning labels on food will cost the industry $2 billion. Now, the Prime Minister's nonsensical package changes on produce will increase the price of food 30%. These are costs that will be passed directly to the consumer.
Why is the Prime Minister increasing the cost of food by 30%?
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- Oct/23/23 2:53:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is no chance of keeping food prices low if the government keeps adding red tape, bureaucracy and carbon taxes on farmers.
Farmers cannot afford increased carbon taxes and red tape, and neither can Canadians who are already struggling to put food on the table. The price of beef and fresh vegetables is up 12%. The carbon tax will cost Canadian farmers close to $1 billion by 2030. It is this simple: If the government increases costs to farmers, the price of food goes up. If the government increases costs to retailers, the price of food goes up.
Why is the Prime Minister not worth the cost? It is because he is increasing food costs by 30%. Why is he?
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Madam Speaker, today I rise to speak to Bill C-57. I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman.
With more than a million Canadians who have Ukrainian heritage, I think it is important not only that we have shown our support for Ukraine in the past, but also, certainly, with what is going on with Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, that we show it now and into the future. Ukrainian immigrants, more than 100 years ago, literally broke ground and planted the roots for Canada's thriving and vibrant agriculture industry in western Canada, so the connections are deep.
However, when it comes to this agreement in particular, I want to emphasize the importance of due diligence and details. The Liberals have tabled a 600-page trade document that is now being rushed through the House of Commons with little opportunity for stakeholders or parliamentarians to review its intricacies. What chapters have been added? What new implements have been suggested? What are the consequences of those new chapters and new policies? When it comes to the Liberal government and its history with trade agreements, the devil is in the details.
To back up a bit, the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement began under the Harper Conservative government. It came into force in August 2017. It eliminated tariffs on 86% of Canadian products and exports to Ukraine. However, the modernization of this agreement is important, and I want to emphasize the fact that we want to see the details and take time to review the wording of the new update. The reason I want to be so adamant about that is just simply that, as I said, unfortunately the Liberal government has a history of failures when it comes negotiating or renegotiating trade agreements. We can go back to the very early days of the Liberal government when we renegotiated NAFTA or the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Trade Agreement, CUSMA. It was clear that the Liberals' goal was to simply get a deal done, tick a box and have a photo-op.
The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister sacrificed a number of critical Canadian industries with trade discrepancies that Canadian industries are still dealing with. Perhaps nowhere were those implications more profound than within Canadian agriculture. The CUSMA agreement impacted a number of agriculture industries, including dairy, where Canada relinquished its ability to export a number of important dairy products, like protein concentrate and skim milk powder. We also added additional access for American products into Canada.
The most glaring error, though perhaps it was not an error but was done on purpose, is the fact that the Liberal government relinquished Canada's trade sovereignty in signing the new CUSMA agreement. That is right. If Canada wants to sign a new trade agreement with any non-market country, we have to get permission or approval from the United States. No G7 country had relinquished that kind of authority to a trading partner. That had never happened, but it is exactly what happened with the Liberals' agreement with CUSMA. Our manufacturers and industry are still dealing with the implications of this agreement, with higher tariffs on aluminum and softwood lumber, which still have not been resolved years later.
There are clearly some important reasons Canadian manufacturers and Canadian industry do not trust the Liberal government when it comes to trade agreements and that it will base those agreements and negotiations on sound economics and the importance of fair trade. It seems, historically, that the Liberals have been basing their trade negotiations on Liberal ideology and virtue signalling. That is not the way trade negotiations should be going.
As recently as last year, the Liberals implemented a Ukraine goods remission order so Ukrainian products, like chicken for example, would be getting quota-free and tariff-free access into Canada. They signed this remission agreement with zero consultation with the stakeholders that would be impacted: Chicken Farmers of Canada, Egg Farmers of Canada and Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors Council. None of them knew this remission order was being signed. The Liberals signed this at a time when avian flu outbreaks around the world, and certainly here in Canada, were devastating the industry. We had these groups at the agriculture committee letting Finance Canada and Global Affairs know about the impacts of the agreement and saying to please not renew the remission order when it came due last spring.
The Liberal government ignored all that stakeholder consultation at committee and renewed that remission order anyway last spring. This has put our biosecurity and our food security at risk as, again, outbreaks of avian influenza were happening around the world and certainly around Ukraine as well.
Last year, we looked at the Liberal-NDP government's decision to impose a 35% tariff on fertilizer coming from Russia and Belarus. Again, there was zero consultation with Canadian producers, especially those farmers in Ontario and eastern Canada who rely almost totally on that fertilizer.
Now, I understand what the government was trying to do: It was trying to punish Putin for his illegal invasion of Ukraine, but Putin was not paying those tariffs. Canadian farmers paid more than $34 million in tariffs just to get the fertilizer into Canada to plant their crops this spring. No other G7 country put such a tariff on fertilizer. None of our allies, including the United States, did this. They understood the importance of their farmers being competitive and the impact the tariff would have on commodity prices, not only here at home but also around the world.
Again, despite every stakeholder telling the government to lift that tariff to ensure that we are competitive and that we have access to affordable fertilizer, the Liberals have ignored them. In fact, when we asked the government on many occasions why it implemented this tariff when none of our G7 allies did, the answer was, “I didn't even know we bought fertilizer from Russia and Belarus”. This just shows why there is such frustration from our stakeholders and our industry. When it comes to the Liberals negotiating trade agreements, they are not consulting. They are plowing ahead with these agreements without doing their due diligence. As much as we support a free trade agreement with Ukraine, we want to make sure that we have the time to review the details within this agreement.
Most recently, the Liberal-NDP government has fast-tracked the United Kingdom to join the trans-Pacific partnership, the CPTPP, again without consulting with Canadian ranchers and pork producers. They desperately wanted some major gaps within the trade agreement with CETA and Canada to be addressed for the U.K. to have accession to the CPTPP.
The numbers are stark. Last year, the United Kingdom imported about 4,000 tonnes of beef, worth $33 million, into Canada. Do members know how much beef Canada exported into the United Kingdom? It was zero; it was not so much as a burger or a steak. Canada's pork industry is facing a very similar trajectory, as the United Kingdom has put in non-tariff trade barriers to block Canadian imports. Not once has the Liberal government stood up to defend Canadian producers.
Free trade must be fair trade, and we are asking the Liberal government to do a side letter, a bilateral, with the U.K. to address this trade discrepancy. It has yet to do that. This is a massive gap, and Canadian producers are the ones paying the price for the Liberal government getting photo ops and ticking a box when it comes to its agenda, without thinking about the consequences for Canadian industries, manufacturers and producers. One thing is very clear after eight years under the Prime Minister: He is failing Canadian agriculture and our industries on the global stage, and our valuable industries are paying the price.
The Conservative Party supports free trade, and we are very proud of the 40 free trade agreements we signed under Prime Minister Harper. However, those agreements benefited Canadian industry and Canadian workers; they did not come at the expense of our hard-working producers.
We want to clearly and carefully review this trade deal and consult Canadian stakeholders to ensure that we reach a free trade agreement with Ukraine. It should be a free and fair trade agreement, not just ticking a box, that will preserve and enhance Canadian industries, including Canadian agriculture, and not follow the same failed policies and failed direction that the Prime Minister has become very famous for.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's speech but just because he gets up and says it does not mean it is true.
In fact, by giving the United Kingdom accession to the CPTPP, an agreement that was negotiated by the Harper government, signed off, barely, almost failed, as a result of the Liberal Prime Minister, they are going to deteriorate this agreement by bringing in non-science, non-tariff trade barrier implements into the CPTPP from CETA because of this, by putting the United Kingdom into this agreement without addressing these issues first.
The CPTPP works because it is science-based. Yes, the Liberals also signed CETA, which has been probably the worst trade agreement we have had as a result of their playing with the end result, same with CUSMA.
Under Harper, we signed trade agreements that worked for Canada. Under this government, they are failing Canada.
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Madam Speaker, this is probably the biggest impact we could have had on Ukraine, barring anything else with agriculture or free trade. When two of our important allies, two of the most important economies in the world, come to Canada asking for Canadian LNG so that they can stop funding Putin's war machine, our Prime Minister turns his back and says that he is sorry, that there is no business case for that.
What has happened? They are still funding Putin's war machine and then they have gone to sign LNG agreements with Qatar, which certainly does not have the environmental standards, the humans rights standards or the labour standards that Canadian energy would have.
We could have shown that we have a critical role to play on the global stage, and we failed because of this Prime Minister.
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Madam Speaker, I do believe there are great opportunities with a free trade agreement with Ukraine, whether that is with agriculture, manufacturing or cybersecurity. Certainly, we could learn some valuable lessons from our NATO allies and what is going on in Ukraine.
However, forgive me if I just have some hesitancy to trust the Liberals on what new chapters and what new details are going to be in this trade agreement, unless we have the time to review it.
That is my only caution to the Liberal government. Do not rush this through. Give parliamentarians and our stakeholders an opportunity to thoroughly review this agreement, to make sure it benefits both parties. The devil is in the details.
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